An overview is provided of the relevant concepts from Total Quality Management (TQM), fuzzy logic, and the chaos theory of education in an effort to support the case for student success courses. First, the paper discusses student success courses, which emphasize helping students develop the skills needed to identify, create, and pursue an increased variety of options in their lives, as well as teaching academic and life management skills and providing information about the school and the community. Next, the reviews current thinking on fuzzy logic (an attempt to bridge the gap between scientific logic and ordinary logic), concluding that a wide range of factors can have a direct impact on learning outcomes, including empowerment and such personal qualities as motivation, commitment, and tenacity. The next section summarizes the major contributions that TQM and Total Quality Improvement (TQI) can make to the discussion of student success, drawing parallels between the business world and education. Learning is discussed as an on-going process that lends itself to the principles of TQM/TQI, and prerequisites for applying these principles in education are identified. Hidden factors that limit student success are enumerated, and their relationship to locus of control is discussed. Next, the chaos theory of education is discussed, suggesting that effective new processes do not need to be clearly understood or based on traditional beliefs to yield consistent outcomes. Finally, a paradigm for developing independent learning skills is presented. (MAB)