In 2004, Lumina Foundation for Education launched "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color. Now encompassing more than 130 institutions in 24 states and the District of Columbia, Achieving the Dream helps community colleges build a "culture of evidence" by using student records and other data to examine students' performance over time and to identify barriers to academic progress. From there, community colleges are expected to develop intervention strategies designed to improve student outcomes; conduct further research on student progress; and bring effective programs to scale. As a result, it is anticipated that colleges will see measurable improvements over time in student outcomes, including increased progress through developmental education and college-level "gatekeeper" (introductory) courses, grades, persistence, and completion of credentials. This report examines the first 26 colleges to join Achieving the Dream in 2004 (known as the "Round 1" colleges), and tracks their progress through spring 2009. The key findings are: (1) Four out of five Round 1 colleges adopted practices associated with a moderate to strong culture of evidence; (2) Colleges that made the greatest strides shared several key characteristics; (3) Colleges instituted a wide range of strategies to improve student achievement, but a majority of them remained small in scale; (4) Achieving the Dream had an important influence on most colleges; and (5) Trends in student outcomes remained relatively unchanged, with a few exceptions. Appendices include: (1) Methodology for Survey of Faculty and Administrators at Achieving the Dream Colleges; and (2) Technical Appendix. Individual chapters contain footnotes. (Contains 11 tables, 29 figures, and 16 boxes.) [For the executive summary, see ED516015.]