This paper describes the development of a program to teach reading and learning skills at the Kansas City, Kansas Community College, which was designed to decrease academic failure in vocational education programs. Primary goals of the program were to develop a screening test to identify students in need of assistance, before academic problems arose, and to implement a course designed to teach the specific skills needed for academic success. Performance on the screening test, which consisted of comprehension questions drawn from students' textbooks, correlated highly with the later success or failure of nursing-education students in their particular vocational program. Five replications of this study revealed similar correlations. In addition, over the six years of its implementation, the failure rate in the nursing program decreased from 45% to 15%. (KS)