The traditional approach to education and many new alternative approaches have failed to serve the needs of students or to prevent students from dropping out. Aware of the many emerging experiments to keep educational opportunities alive for restless students, the authors propose a complete design, drawing on the resources of local school authorities to provide nontraditional means to achieve a diploma. The instruments of the new design are a Regional Learning Service (RLS) and an External High School Diploma. The direction and policies of the RLS are determined by school institutions. Its purpose is to assist alienated high school age young people to identify their educational goals through counseling, testing, and field-based experiences. RLS also provides a variety of learning options in educational institutions or in the community, both of which will lead to a high school diploma. The External Diploma would be one awarded to a student after appropriate assessment of his pattern of nontraditional study by local school authorities and their confirmation to the State education department that the student had achieved specified performance objectives. The time to earn such a diploma, and the framework within which such a diploma might be earned, would depend on the individual student's needs, abilities, and motivations. (Author/JF)