The National Council of La Raza launched Project Excellence in Community Educational Leadership (EXCEL), in 1985 to contribute experiences and input from the community level to the school reform process and to address some of the short-term needs of the students currently enrolled. Project EXCEL, which is designed to help Hispanic American community-based organizations become effective partners with the schools, was launched to improve Hispanic American educational opportunities and achievement through the development and testing of low-cost, replicable community-based education models and complementary applied research, policy analysis, and dissemination of information about the educational status and needs of Hispanic Americans. In spite of a consistent pattern of undereducation and the rapid growth of Hispanic Americans as a proportion of the school population, educational policies and programs continue to be developed and implemented with little attention to their needs. The following six models have been developed by Project EXCEL: (1) Academia del Pueblo, supplemental education for elementary school children; (2) Project Success for middle school or junior high school youth; (3) Project Second Chance, a program to attract those who have left school without a diploma; (4) Parents as Partners, a parenting program; (5) Family Reading Program, a literacy program for parents and children; and (6) the Teacher Support Network for teacher education for those working with Hispanic children. In the second year of a 5-year demonstration project, 26 sites are running 42 separate programs based on these models. (SLD)