More than half of entering community college students lack the basic skills required to do college-level academic work. Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians disproportionately rely on community colleges as their point of initial access to higher education, making the issue of preparation inherently tied to factors of race and ethnicity. In some areas, community colleges enroll 40% of all high school graduates, but 80% of the minority graduates. The prevailing community college approach to student preparation issues involves a deficiency model in which remediation is emphasized as the dominant strategy for bringing everyone to minimum standards. Also needed is an achievement model that challenges faculty to design an environment where diversity is valued and individuals are inspired to build on their strengths to attain maximum potential. The task of implementing achievement models in institutions historically committed to access is, above all, a task of managing culture. While culture management is more time-consuming and difficult than the introduction of technology, it is the only approach through which faculty can be influenced to augment deficiency views and practices. A complicating factor is that the two models will need to coexist in most community colleges for the foreseeable future. Efforts to manage culture will be aided by the opportunity to employ new staff as those faculty who represent founding values and beliefs retire in large numbers over the next decade. A flow-chart model of institutional adaptation to student diversity and a 28-item bibliography are included. (JMC)