One cause of the underrepresentation of students with disabilities in postsecondary education may be a lack of appropriate and effective accommodations (e.g., West et al., 1993). This study hypothesized that ineffective and inappropriate accommodations result from an accommodation selection process that focuses on disability type rather than students' contextual and functional needs. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used to obtain students' perspectives of the accommodation process and experienced or potential barriers to their participation in postsecondary education. Students with disabilities completed surveys (n=108) and participated in focus groups (n=104). These students, who had various disability conditions, attended 15 community and technical colleges in California, Minnesota and Kansas. Participants' responses reflected satisfaction with certain practices and procedures as well as a need for improvements in others. More individualized methods of accommodation selection that consider the context of students' lives, individual functional needs, trade-offs between immediate and long-term costs and benefits and incorporate systemwide universal design concepts are presented as an alternative framework for consideration by Disability Support Services staff. (Contains 5 tables.)