An accountability model for the California community colleges must be based on an extensive discussion of precisely who is being held accountable, to whom are they responsible, what are they responsible for, and how will such responsibility be enforced. In developing its model, the Assembly Bill 1725 Accountability Task Force of the California community colleges defined accountability as a condition rather than a relationship and gave short shrift to the specification of expectations, focusing instead on the enumeration of indicators and the communication of evidence. The California community colleges are accountable not only to state government and to local district authorities, but to students, employers (of graduates), articulated institutions and programs, and to each other. With respect to the issue of who is being held accountable, a true accountability model would enable voters to hold elected officials responsible for the performance of community colleges in the same way that administrators are responsible to elected leaders. Regarding the question of what institutions are responsible for, outcomes rather than processes must be the primary medium of exchange in an accountability system. Among the five components of the Task Force's accountability system (i.e., student access, student success, student satisfaction, staff composition, and fiscal condition), only student success appears to be a truly first order outcome. With respect to the how of accountability enforcement, a mission-driven system must be created to replace the rule-driven system implicit in the present Task Force's accountability model. (PAA)