The concept of rhetorical community is employed in this paper as a starting point for the study of community. Since the clarity of the concept "rhetorical community" is insufficient for purposes of building theories, the paper offers a more precise conceptual definition: a rhetorical community is a group of people who identify themselves with a common rhetorical vision (symbolic reality) that gives them a common goal and sense of purpose by which they organize their actions. Based on systems theory, the paper proposes this model of rhetorical community as a necessary step toward constructing a theory of community based upon communication processes. Suggestions are offered for studying rhetorical community from both rhetorical and ethnographic approaches. (RL)