This book explores three major imperatives of American higher education in the decades ahead. First, colleges and universities must respond to six critical challenges: minority participation; financing quality education; replacing quality faculty; affordability; institutional ethics; and national competitiveness. Second, strong leadership is required at both the institutional and state government levels; and third, the impact of changing regional economies will transform institutions located in burgeoning metropolitan areas and foster new forms of higher education. Seventeen chapters address these and other issues including: the community college perspective (in a chapter by George B. Vaughan); leadership of governors versus college presidents; U.S. higher education as a managerial model; multicampus governing boards; coordinating boards and the politication of U.S. higher education; new ways of serving hypergrowth regions (in a chapter by Edward L. Delaney and Donald M. Norris); and the distributed university. An appendix reports on a 1988/89 survey of 148 college and university presidents, governors, and others which identified respondents opinions concerning important issues, trends, challenges, and troubling patterns. References are provided for each chapter. (DB)