Data from a 2002 study indicate that small private colleges have been closing at an alarming rate. These institutions seldom possess the resources that might enable them to respond flexibly to changes in their environment, and rising operating costs and inadequate endowments leave them at a competitive disadvantage compared with public colleges and universities. In the early 1990s, the author surveyed 1,312 administrators and board chairs from 133 small colleges in an effort to ascertain how boards and presidents of small colleges might apply to their institutions to halt or prevent decline. This article presents his observations on the sources of decline in small private colleges and some strategies that might help to reinvigorate dying institutions.