In the wake of the Spellings Commission, critical choices need to be made about how to refashion institutional assessment practices to respond to new accountability demands, without destroying the essence of accountability as a process of continuous improvement. This article begins with a brief description of the history of assessment, with particular emphasis on assessment's role in accountability. In the next section, the author distills how assessment evolved over this period by contrasting two opposed paradigms: one directed internally toward improving teaching and learning and the other directed externally toward policymakers and the public. The third section describes the immediate background to the current situation occasioned by the Spellings Commission and its aftermath. (Officially known as the Secretary's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, this was convened by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in 2004 and issued its report in fall 2006.) In the final section, the author draws some implications from these developments by posing a number of strategic choices about how to proceed. (Contains 1 table.)