This article describes the results from a national project that investigated institutional approaches to the development of student English language capabilities in Australian higher education. The project aimed to identify the various approaches and strategies that higher education providers have established and to gauge whether they have been evaluated by those in the field as successful in attaining their objectives. The results of the study indicated that those institutions identified as successful had a number of elements in common, elements missing from those universities which were considered as less effective. The article concludes by identifying the key factors that were identified by project participants as being essential in the development of successful institution-wide strategies for promoting student language growth.