Serial communication between 3.3V board and 5v board

Just put a 10k resistor in series, mounted directly adjacent to the Nano. However if you are using the hardware UART - pin zero - then the USB-serial chip connected through a 1k resistor will prevent this from working (and could cause some problems anyway).

Probably just a Schottky diode from the output pin of the Zero to the 3.3 V pin.