This paper identifies various goals for citizen monitoring groups concerned with the enforcement of rights that accompany racial desegregation, sex equality, and aid for the handicapped in schools, and presents recommendations for successful civil rights group monitoring. It is suggested that successful citizen monitoring requires: (1) establishing the monitoring group as part of the civil rights program; (2) recognizing different viewpoints of group members; (3) clearly specifying the extent of the group's authority; (4) developing appropriate monitoring structures; (5) choosing members carefully; (6) providing appropriate resources; and (7) presenting group reports to the school system. Four types of civil rights monitoring groups are identified according to the type of mandate imposed on them (statutory, political, educational, or social). The structures, resources, and strategies appropriate for each type, elements that might make for group success or failure, and specific recommendations for group success are discussed. In regard to the problems that monitoring groups may confront, it is held that effective group monitoring depends not only on following general strategies for success, but also on knowing a group's particular mandate and that mandate's implications. (Author/MJL)