Root-associated microbes are critical for plant growth and nutrient acquisition. However, scant information exists on optimizing communities of beneficial root-associated microbes or the mech-anisms underlying their interactions with host plants. In this report, we demonstrate that root-associated microbes are critical influencers of host plant growth and nutrient acquisition. Three synthetic communities (SynComs) were con-structed based on functional screening of 1,893 microbial strains isolated from root-associated compartments of soybean plants. Functional as-semblage of SynComs promoted significant plant growth and nutrient acquisition under both N/P nutrient deficiency and sufficiency conditions. Field trials further revealed that application of SynComs stably and significantly promoted plant growth, facilitated N and P acquisition, and sub-sequently increased soybean yield. Among the tested communities, SynCom1 exhibited the greatest promotion effect, with yield increases of up to 36.1％ observed in two field sites. Further RNA-seq implied that SynCom application sys-temically regulates N and P signaling networks at the transcriptional level, which leads to increased representation of important growth pathways, es-pecially those related to auxin responses. Overall, this study details a promising strategy for con-structing SynComs based on functional screening, which are capable of enhancing nutrient acquis-ition and crop yield through the activities of beneficial root-associated microbes.