Coordination of higher education within national sets is discussed in this working paper. The structural bases of national coordination, the tasks of higher education and the prevailing structure of embedded power, are described. The national general patterns of coordinative organization that appear frequently among national systems of higher education are evaluated. Contemporary processes of increased coordination are discussed and include methods of bureaucratic coordination such as layering, jurisdictional expansion, personnel enlargement, administrative specialization, and role expansion; political coordination such as increased regime and party involvement, increased cooperation, and increased participation; professional coordination such as expansion of faculty interest organization; and market coordination such as increased consumer sovereignty, creeping institutional markets, and extension of power markets. (SPG)