As society turns increasingly to education to provide remedies for economic and social ills and to prepare citizens for life and work in a rapidly changing world, the community college is emerging as a major force in U.S. education. Recent trends indicate that U.S. productivity is lagging behind that of other countries, most notably Japan. Japan's economic success is due in large part to the fact that its blue-collar workers can interpret advanced mathematics, read complex engineering blueprints, and perform highly skilled tasks in the factories. Without a similarly well-educated work force, the U.S. cannot hope to regain a position of technological superiority in an increasingly competitive world market. Reclaiming the skills and productivity of U.S. workers demands systematic and sustained collaboration between policy makers and educators to deal efficiently with the complex interaction between the job-related educational needs of students and adults, the business community, labor, the job market, and the economy. A Presidential Counselor on Education for Employment should be appointed to coordinate all existing programs involving education, manpower training, and employment; and community colleges, working in collaboration with the business community, should provide the majority of worker training programs. The emerging economic order needs workers with imagination, confidence, initiative, and independence who can think clearly, solve problems, and exercise judgement. Appropriate curricula for these workers must provide an amalgam of liberal and vocational education designed to prepare them for satisfying and stable employment, ongoing vocational training, and the continual cultivation of the life of the mind. (ALB)