This document is a history of the founding, growth, and struggle for independence of Universidad Popular, a successful adult education center in Chicago. The story focuses on the struggle between a multi-campus, community college system and a local community wanting to assume responsibility for its own adult education. It follows the struggle through its nine year history (1972-1981) and ends with the final split that gave the community center independence at a cost of more than $250,000 in annual public funding. According to the history, the center today operates a program that simultaneously provides adult literacy and general education together with political, economic, and cultural empowerment. The history states that, in the struggle for the center's independence, the colleges were adversaries of learners seeking and attaining control over their lives and their communities. It describes factors that it says mitigate against our nation's efforts to eliminate illiteracy and that, in part, account for the failures of public education. The report is indexed by names and by historical materials relating to Universidad Popular. (KC)