In 1985, an ad hoc committee was appointed to conduct a comprehensive examination of the educational effectiveness of the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). The principles governing the assessment emphasized students' educational goals; cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes; differences among subgroups within the student population; concurrent evaluations of performance indicators, programs and disciplines, and teacher effectiveness; and the use of manageable methodologies yielding timely results. Actions taken under CCP's quality assessment program include: (1) development and implementation of a set of performance indicators (i.e., enrollment, retention, academic performance, post-CCP outcomes, and efficiency measures) were developed and implemented for all disciplines; (2) creation of new goal statements for new and continuing students to aid in outcomes assessment; (3) administration of a general academic assessment test to a cross-section of CCP students; (4) assessment of student gains in self-concept; (5) reconstruction of the program and discipline audit process; (6) construction of a comprehensive retention database, including a wide range of demographic, personal background, and academic data on all entering students; and (7) conduct of current and former student surveys to assess student progress toward their educational goals. Elements fundamental to the success of CCP's assessment program have been the support from the college president, efforts to balance positive and negative findings, methodological emphases on finding causal relationships, and faculty involvement. (EJV)