The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel (CAPES) has contributed to the improvement of the quantity and quality of the graduate programs in Brazil. This development can be observed in the increase of new courses at the master and doctorate levels and in the indicators of quality utilized in the evaluation system implemented by CAPES. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the CAPES Evaluation System can be used by graduate programs for advancing their development. The study is based on an action research approach used in 2005 by the Graduate Program of Business of the University of São Paulo (USP). The principal results emphasized the importance of: a) reorganization of the research structure; b) effective participation of professors in the evaluation process, and c) development of a system to collect data and control of the information of the Program.