Language and cultural preservation efforts among different communities of language speakers in the United States have received increasing attention as interest in linguistic rights and globalization continues to deepen. In addition to mounting evidence of the cognitive, psychological, and academic benefits of heritage language/community language (HL/CL) maintenance for linguistic-minority children, scholars have advocated for the recognition, support, and utilization of the potentially rich pool of HLs/CLs as a resource for filling linguistic and cultural voids in professional and political sectors of society. Throughout U.S. history, the most significant efforts for HL/CL instruction outside the home have occurred in community-based HL/CL schools. journals, centers, and university programs dedicated to HL/CL education and research. This article examines the contributions of community based HL/CL education programs to the promotion of language diversity in the United States. The authors begin by defining HL/CL and framing the boundaries of HL/CL education as distinct from language instruction programs offered in U.S. schools, where the attention has been primarily on English acquisition. Then, they review the history of HL/CL education in the United States, focusing on how educational language policy and politics have influenced the instructional models as well as the learning outcomes of HL/CL education. Next, the authors offer a synthesis of the challenges and needs faced by community-based HL/CL programs. Following this synthesis, they present contrastive examples of the different approaches to HL/CL education taken by two different communities, the Korean American and the Cambodian (Khmer) American. The authors conclude by arguing for a rediscovery of community-based HL/CL programs as an alternative but legitimate educational space, where critical discourses about and practices supportive of multilingualism and multiculturalism can flourish.