During recent decades, there has been an influx of underprepared students in America's colleges and universities. At many institutions, programs have been created to assist these high risk students through special classes and/or support services. Through application of student development theory these programs can shed the negative connotations of remedial education and can provide new models for individualized counseling and instruction. This paper asserts that research in student development provides educators with a sound theoretical foundation for meeting the needs of high risk students and that student development theory provides a framework which should serve as a beginning point for designing services for high risk students. It presents theories of moral and ethical development, learning and perceptual modalities, personality, developmental tasks, and student involvement and explores how these theories can provide critical insights into the needs of high risk students. It is concluded that knowledge and application of developmental theory will help educators of high risk students to define and articulate their mission and philosophy, and will help them justify and perfect programs which in the future may be viewed as models for teaching and advising all students. (Author/NB)