Over the past year, in a process to select the winner of the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the Aspen Institute has convened national experts to define and determine how to measure "excellence," to identify community colleges with high levels of student success, and to help more community colleges understand what can be done to improve their outcomes. Along the way, it has become clear that if community colleges are to help meet the national completion goal while building strong and equitable programs, those outcomes will need to include, but not be limited to, graduation rates. This article presents a four-part definition of excellence and a few examples of why each piece of the definition is so important if more community colleges are to realize lasting gains in student success. (Contains 5 resources.)