Traditional ways of dealing with personnel, with reporting procedures, and with funding mechanisms will require close study to ascertain the extent to which they assist or obstruct community colleges' abilities to fully utilize recently developed electronic technology for educational purposes. This document considers how California community colleges seeking to change with the times have had to address difficulties created by legislative, policy, or administrative regulations. Assumptions that community colleges were essentially 2-year extensions of secondary schooling had to be changed so that attendance and student supervision regulations could be modified to allow instruction through technological media. A slow process of revising laws and regulations followed. The author concludes from an examination of these developments in California that (1) current laws and regulations contain archaic provisions that will continue to impede progress; (2) modifications in public policy must continue if community colleges are to remain innovative and flexible institutions; and (3) external vigilance is essential to prevent the proliferation of simple-minded regulatory solutions to complex policy questions. (Author/PGD)