The Competency Based Teacher Preparation Program at the University of Houston and its complementary management system have evolved from a set of logically derived assumptions about the nature of teaching. The program characteristics call for a program that is founded in the reality of the teaching act, treats all of the persons involved therein as semi-autonomous individuals with their own rights and concerns, provides as far as possible for individual differences of students, and is accountable in both a fiscal and an academic sense. These global characteristics have been translated by the faculty into topical characteristics and actual program objectives and experiences (included in appendixes). The program presents reality to the student through two years of continuous field experience. The student is taught a variety of teacher roles which he may model as he begins to teach and from which he will evolve his own model of teaching behavior. The program is pluralistic in that it provides experiences in several distinct cultures. The student is also provided with a variety of personal information utilized in making initial career decisions. (Extensive appendixes describe the program, its components and objectives.) (JA)