Reports from the National Commission on Excellence in Education, the Carnegie Commission, and recent survey responses from colleges and universities across the United States have verified suspicions about student inabilities to demonstrate acceptable levels of literacy skills. The first step toward achieving excellence is structuring, demanding, and tasking, based on the premise that low expectations and failure to demand acceptable performances from teachers and students breed mediocrity. Many college teachers engage in the very teaching that has come under fire at the public school level: low-level, regurgitive, unimaginative teaching that leads to low-level cognitive demands in class and in evaluation. Teachers must expect great things of students and then demand that they be achieved. Time on task is the one variable that leads students to achievement of learning and skill development. The second step toward achieving excellence is nurturing and supporting. Teachers should behave in ways that say they are there to help students achieve the objectives that have been defined for the course. Teacher behavior reflecting caring and support can help to reduce absenteeism and curb rising attrition rates. Expecting, demanding, and helping students achieve should be both personal and professional educational goals. (LH)