Quality assurance processes have developed in Latin America since the beginning of the 1990s, trying to deal with the changes in higher education. This article is organized from two main perspectives: the first is mostly descriptive, and it focuses first on a brief outline of structural changes, that impact on the features of higher education in the region; the response from Latin America, in terms of national systems and subregional and regional arrangements; and then on the perceived effects of the implementation of quality assurance mechanisms on higher education institutions. Based on that information, the second part has a prospective approach: it identifies some of the main challenges, that have to do with the need not to do 'more of the same' but rather, to develop a second generation of quality assurance processes, and makes suggestions about possible actions for policy makers, higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies.