The year-long development of a community college writing center designed to serve as both site and catalyst for improving students' content area writing is described in terms of the problems encountered during the year and the solutions to those problems. Seven problems are specifically dealt with: (1) the ineffectiveness of the singular use of grammar drills, (2) the variety among teachers in their grading of written assignments, (3) the feeling of inadequacy many teachers had with regard to closely scrutinizing student writing, (4) the limited use of assigned writing, (5) the lack of models provided for different types of required writing, (6) the broad range of student abilities, and (7) the problem of evaluation. The approaches taken to meet the problems are described and include techniques such as having students complete specific grammar exercises that apply to errors found in their own papers, sponsoring faculty workshops that provide forums for discussing the particular problems students and faculty face in writing for their particular field of study, preparing a writing skills chart to diagnose students' writing difficulties in content areas, constructing models for content area writing, and polling multiple sources to evaluate students' writing progress. (AEA)