In the current environment of global economic restructuring, changes in work and employment, and large-scale immigration to the United States, adult basic education (ABE) is facing demands that it be accountable for its performance by demonstrating its success in terms of student and societal outcomes. The increasing calls for ABE to develop a system of performance accountability stem from the following factors and problems: regarding what it means to be literate is changing; the purpose of literacy remains undefined; ABE's many stakeholders are not mutually accountable; ABE is struggling to create a national accountability system without a national service delivery system; and existing tools for measuring learning are not up to the task. Thanks to several new initiatives for addressing performance, the problems of accountability in ABE are beginning to be addressed at the state and national levels. The following principles have been proposed as a framework for action that will enable ABE to perform effectively and be held accountable for future performance: (1) agree on performance; (2) build mutual accountability relationships; (3) develop capacity to perform and be accountable; and (4) create new tools to measure performance. (109 references) (MN)