Our objective is to determine accurate structural models for some novel oxide materials that we have recently prepared using new synthesis approaches, each of which is formed as a nanocrystalline powder and has issues of disorder concerning its structure. In the case of mixed metal gallium-based spinels the distribution of metals over tetrahedral and octahedral sites must be resolved along with possible metal and oxide deficiency, and for some doped cerium oxide fluorites the degree of distortion about dopant ions must be defined. Bragg scattering alone cannot provide the data needed; total scattering holds the key to structure refinement and neutron scattering is best suited since it will allow scattering contrast between constituent atoms as well as producing high Q range data for the best quality pair distribution functions.