Community colleges are failing to realize their potential because of problems at the very highest level of policy and management decision-making. Publicly elected trustees are apt to have political allegiances. Community college boards are usually too small to represent the range of talent and experience needed for constructing effective trustees supporting groups. The small size of these boards also prohibits committee work and forces the board to act as a committee of the whole, thereby wasting valuable board time. The political implications and the difficulties implicit in the structure and operation of many boards force community college presidents to devote inordinate amounts of time to work with, motive, and staff trustees functions; furthermore, the administrative and management duties of presidents and boards are not clearly delineated. State superboards often devitalize institutional boards and make them powerless. Boards of trustees do not conduct systematic self-studies to test the effectiveness of present practices and to design improvements where necessary. The author recommends methods of correcting these problems, suggests that the community college trustee resource be studied in depth, and that three major national education associations mount a program designed to accomplish major increases in the effectiveness of trustee lay leadership. (Author/DC)