The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) adopted recognition standards in 2006 requiring regional and professional accreditors such as the Council on Accreditation of Park, Recreation, Tourism, and Related Professions (COAPRT) to adopt standards and practices advancing academic quality, demonstrating accountability, and encouraging self scrutiny and planning for change and improvement. COAPRT complied by replacing 45 content-based academic standards with four broad learning outcomes. Programs have flexibility when addressing these outcomes, but must demonstrate opportunities for students to obtain appropriate knowledge and skills, assess student performance, determine whether assessments indicate student achievement at desired levels, and evidence assessment driving curricular decision making. Other new standards require programs to make assessment results available to the public. The process by which COAPRT developed, tested, assessed, revised, and implemented the new standards between 2004 and 2013 is discussed. COAPRTs continuing CHEA recognition is dependent upon implementation of and program compliance with these new standards.