Every continuous action of a countable group on a Polish space induces a Borel equivalence relation. We are interested in the problem of realizing (i.e. finding a Borel isomorphic copy of) these equivalence relations as continuous actions on compact spaces. We provide a number of positive results on this problem, and we investigate the connection to subshifts. Joint with Joshua Frisch, Alexander Kechris and Zoltán Vidnyánszky.