Colleges and universities are now dealing with certain students through a new component in their instructional environment. These emerging Learning Centers are typically designed to assist and guide capable but fundamentally ill-prepared handicapped students in acquiring needed background. In some cases, such components not only help dispense prerequisite skills to students with inadequate high school preparation, but also assist students in preparation for even higher levels of education programs. The Learning Center generally has learning laboratory components which provide fundamental learning skill development work on an individual or small-group basis in such areas as reading, vocabulary, writing, studying, and basic computational skills. Within these laboratories the use of instructional technology differs considerably with the philosophical orientation and financial resources of each center. Students are identified and assessed, and prescriptive programs of remediation are presented. Learning Centers vary in both name and function from one institution to another. Most are similar, however, in that they seek to limit unnecessary pupil drop-outs, enhance learning skills, minimize the trauma of academic failure, improve the academic performance of their students, and, most importantly, provide learning opportunities for the handicapped to get into the mainstream of higher education. Learning Centers frequently deliver their services through the activities of sub-programs such as learning laboratories which are composed of counseling laboratories, reading laboratories, mathematics laboratories, basic skills programs, paraprofessional laboratories, and tutorial programs. (Author)