As part of a larger exploration of the role of community colleges in bringing the poor, working class, and ethnic minorities into higher education, this study looked at how students and institutional cultures at four urban community colleges interacted to achieve unusually high transfer rates to four-year colleges and universities. In the 1994-95 academic year the study examined the Community College of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Wilbur Wright College in Chicago (Illinois), Palo Alto College in San Antonio (Texas), and Seattle Central Community College in Washington. Ethnographic researchers gathered 450 data elements from interviews with and observation of students, faculty, staff and administrators; attendance at institution-wide events; and collection of historical and archival documents. Though a single, consistent pattern of interaction between institutional and student cultures did not emerge from the analysis and individual portraits of the colleges revealed distinctly different institutions, each had an institutional culture that seemed to mesh with the unique attitudes, needs, and aspirations of their student bodies. The analysis also suggests that the ways this confluence occurred is situation specific. Whether students willingly adapt to the institutional culture or the culture adapts to the student, the ability of either culture to be adaptive appeared to be a key ingredient in the culture of these colleges. Includes a matrix comparing the four institutions. (Contains 47 references.) (JB)