This article addresses how developing caring relations with students at a community college effectively supports students' needs and ultimately success. At the same time, I discuss my own personal dilemmas while creating relationships that focus on students' needs. I use Nel Noddings' ethic of care theory to discuss how her ideas and the idea of others have challenged me to think about and develop an ethic of care enriched by my own teaching and interactions with my students. In this paper, I use three vignettes to illustrate: the profound difference caring can have on one student; sometimes one's caring will lead a student to remove herself from academe; and the power of caring in terms of community. I conclude cautiously, knowing that the demands involved in developing caring relations is complicated by the needs of many: the students', my own and the institutions'.