The authors teach upper-level science courses in cell biology, genetics, and biochemistry at a public, four-year "community university" that serves a demographically diverse population of traditional and nontraditional students. In this article, they describe some of the issues they have found to be particularly significant at their "community university" and their approaches to them. Through these different pedagogical strategies, they are attempting to ameliorate differences in student background and prior course work within the time constraints of their students. (Contains 2 tables.)