"Lumina Foundation Lessons" is an occasional publication in which the foundation shares the results of its grantees' work on strategies to improve the persistence rates among Indiana's underserved college freshman and sophomore populations. This issue, the first in the series, contains the following articles: (1) Summer Transition Programs: Jump-Starting the Freshman Year; (2) If You Build It, Will They Come? Support Programs Work, but Attracting Students Remains a Challenge; (3) Reinventing the Gateway Class: Teaching Ensemble Replaces "Sage on Stage"; (4) The Computer as a Retention Tool: Personalizing the College Experience One Keystroke at a Time; (5) Exploring the "Cheers" Effect: Linking service Learning and Persistence; (6) The Power of Community: Making It Easier for Students to Learn, Persist, Succeed; and (7) Epilogue: As Indiana Goes, so Should the Rest of the Nation.