Migrant farmworkers are the most disadvantaged of minority groups, but their needs and problems go unnoticed and unmet in most communities. Mobility, language and cultural differences, and health and nutrition problems combine to produce negative effects on school achievement. An estimated 70 percent of adult migrants have not completed high school. Although migrant farmworkers include many ethnic groups, they share a certain life style and many behavioral patterns. Migrancy as a culture tends to produce similarities in sex role expectations, roles of adults and children, dealings with social institutions, feelings of powerlessness, and attitudes toward authority. These cultural traits have implications for the success of adult education programs. Following the failure of a residential program for migrant school dropouts, the University of Tennessee established high school equivalency (UT-HEP) programs at four sites with high concentrations of migrant farmworkers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. This outreach program has surpassed its enrollment target each year and attracted both recent dropouts and adults. Program success is attributed to student empowerment, accessibility, flexibility of class schedules, culturally and ethnically congruent recruiters and staff, availability of bilingual counseling, individualized plans, and ongoing assessment. Several UT-HEP graduates in western North Carolina helped found a migrant community center that provides legal assistance, housing assistance, literacy education, and cultural activities as well as improving relations between migrants and the larger community. (SV)