Students who engage in eLearning without basic computer skills may struggle with the technology instead of the academic content, drop out of courses, and then be excluded, not only from online learning, but also from technology enhanced, classroom-based learning. The purpose of this study was to identify those students, and whether those without skills could self-identify, or whether an assessment tool would be necessary to determine students' skill levels. This included: 1) confirming that a technology literacy assessment is truly needed and 2) creating a valid and reliable assessment tool to measure incoming students' ability to meet these minimum requirements. With the financial support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and using the simulation software built by Course Technology, a 17-item performance-based assessment was built, including the basic skills identified in the Statement of Minimal Technical Literacy for Incoming College Students (see appendix). The Basic Computer Skills Assessment was administered to 2090 students in five Connecticut Community Colleges, of which 1459 registered for classes in the fall of 2006. Most students were found to bring a foundation of basic computer skills to their first day of class, but it was not necessarily a strong foundation. Fewer than one-fifth of the students tested were able to complete all of the tasks correctly. Students demonstrated the most trouble with tasks such as sending an email with an attachment, replying to email, and entering a uniform resource locator in a web address bar. In the sample studied, the demographics indicated higher proficiency for males, younger students, students who had higher family incomes, students who did not have GEDs, and students who showed proficiency in reading and writing. For those older, less proficient students from poorer families, the lack of these skills would constitute one more barrier to their success in college. Identifying and remediating these requisite skills before students enter their first college classroom would remove one of these barriers. Although students did not accurately self-assess their abilities, the simulation software offered by Course Technology provided a reliable and valid method of assessing students' abilities to perform these tasks. Eleven recommendations for eLearning practitioners are offered based on the study results. The following is appended: Statement of Minimal Technical Literacy for Incoming College Students. [This document was produced by the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium.]