The community college mission has been the subject of considerable review and commentary since its conception. Based on traditional concerns of access, a consensus has largely been reached regarding the inclusion of transfer, career, developmental, and community foci within a comprehensive community college. While concerns regarding access and affordability have largely driven mission, community colleges have also begun to reach out to other groups of students, including international students and honors students, raising questions about mission. Community colleges have addressed this latter group through honors sections and programs. As with four-year colleges, community colleges have also begun to institute honors colleges as a way to recruit and serve high achieving students who might otherwise go elsewhere. Based on a case study of one college's efforts to establish an honors college, we suggest a contingent model for development of honors colleges at the community college. The ultimate determinations as to whether the honors college is true to the community college mission lies in the composition of honors college participants. Districts that can use honors colleges to attract diversity in terms of underrepresented groups to their colleges may fulfill the promise of the traditional community college mission by making the transition from the community college to a selective four-year institution less onerous. The enhanced confidence, success, and social capital obtained in such an honors college simultaneously meets the egalitarian and meritocratic aims of the community college.