After the determination that the Principles of Accounting course offered at Herkimer County Community College, New York, had a higher attrition rate than other introductory courses, a study was conducted to develop a computer-assisted diagnostic system which could identify the learning deficiences of accounting students and prescribe corrective assignments on a week-to-week basis. The study involved: (1) the establishment of behavioral objectives for each instructional unit in the accounting course; (2) the development of diagnostic surveys for each instructional unit, utilizing multiple-choice and true/false questions; (3) the creation of individually tailored assignments directed toward specific student responses for each question on the surveys; (4) the development of a computer program to match survey responses with appropriate assignments; (5) the implementation of the diagnostic system in the accounting class; (6) the identification of student attitudes toward the system through questionnaires administered to course completers and to those students who withdrew from the course; and (7) the eventual comparison of course attrition rates after system implementation with rates experienced prior to implementation. The study report includes a review of the literature and examples of the behavioral objectives and prescriptive reinforcement assignments. (JP)