In a historic unanimous vote on May 20, 2015, the Rhode Island Council on Postsecondary Education welcomed College Unbound as a degree-granting postsecondary option in the state, designed to serve the more than 110,000 Rhode Island adults who began but did not complete bachelor's degrees. The college is the adult-learning initiative of Big Picture Learning, a nonprofit organization dedicated to a fundamental redesign of education in the U.S. College Unbound has broken with tradition, painting a new picture of college. It is "unbound" from conventional structures, designed specifically to meet the needs of the underserved adult learner in unique ways. College Unbound provides more than a single intervention aimed at accommodating adults; it combines several interventions in a carefully designed program that has been tested and proven successful with underrepresented, low-income, returning adult learners over the last six years. It facilitates a real-life curriculum built around projects which students design in connection to their work and interests in an online environment. The development of Lifelong Learning Competencies and field-specific knowledge and skills are interwoven through a combination of courses, field studies in the student's own workplace and community, and in-depth work on projects with meaningful impact. The article concludes that by welcoming College Unbound as a degree-granting postsecondary option, Rhode Island is opening doors for the underserved adult learner, recognizing that the clock, the dollar, and tolerance levels for irrelevant curriculum only stretch so far.