Schizophrenia is among the most disabling illnesses of adults in the world. With illness onset typically occurring in young adulthood, individuals with schizophrenia often struggle to establish and maintain social and work roles in the community. In recognition of the profound disability associated with schizophrenia, the Veteran’s Health Administration has prioritized provision of mental health care services to adults with severe and persistent mental illnesses. The President’s New Freedom Commission called for the development of mental health care services that focus on “increasing consumer’s ability to successfully cope with life challenges, on facilitating recovery, and on building resilience.” The proposed intervention study is designed to enhance cognition, and ultimately, psychosocial functioning in patients. The cognitive dysfunction associated with schizophrenia has been found to be one of the strongest predictors of how well patients do in the community. The primary aim of the proposed study is to evaluate the efficacy of a novel pairing of two therapeutic interventions designed to restore cognitive functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Presently, cognitive remediation, a computer-based intervention that exercises cognitive abilities, is the approach to intervention that has shown the most success in changing cognitive performance in patients with schizophrenia. While gains are made with this approach to intervention, the impact has been modest, and the intensity of training regimens required by this approach may be a barrier that limits widespread use of this intervention. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulatory technique that has been found to temporarily facilitate learning and to enhance cognitive performance. The proposed study will examine these two techniques used in combination to enhance cognition and psychosocial functioning in patients with schizophrenia. To accomplish this goal, 100 patients with schizophrenia will be randomized to cognitive remediation paired with either tDCS or a sham condition. In both conditions participants will receive computer-based cognitive training and metacognitive strategy training three times a week for 16 weeks. The cognitive training protocol proposed in this study is focused on exercising working memory processes and has been found to be effective in producing change in this domain. Participants in the tDCS condition will receive 20 minutes of 1 mA stimulation concurrent with training. Participants in the sham condition will receive 30 seconds of stimulation to simulate the experience of tDCS. We hypothesize that, as compared to participants in the sham condition, patients who receive cognitive remediation with tDCS will demonstrate significantly greater change on neuropsychological measures of working memory, related cognitive functions, functional capacity, and community functioning. A second study goal is to examine the stability of intervention-induced ch...