The question of how well students are doing is central to the enterprise of higher education. Students want to know what grade was received on the paper or test. Faculty want to know what it will take to reach tenure or be reappointed. Admissions staff want to know how many students need to be enrolled in order to provide tuition revenue required to pay the bills and so forth. In essence, individuals in higher education spend a good portion of their time measuring and assessing how well they are doing and whether they are meeting expectations or goals. It is ironic, then, that higher education institutions are so often described as resistant to assessment and standards of performance. Simplistic dichotomizing conceptions of assessment--accountability versus improvement, faculty led versus externally imposed, compliance versus learner centered--are being replaced by a recognition of the importance of demonstrating student learning and a reconsideration of what constitutes the best evidence of learning. Over the past ten years, higher education faculty and institutions have begun to meet the challenge of accountability by placing faculty and educator expertise and judgment at the center of assessment efforts that have student learning improvement as their primary purpose. This article discusses how The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has helped facilitate the transformation of assessment into a high impact practice. Assessment can be used effectively to improve student learning-not only content knowledge, but also the skills and abilities needed to apply knowledge to complex, unscripted problems and for career success in an ever-changing, technology driven global environment.