For over 100 years, community colleges have been rightly seen as institutions designed to have an intimate relation to the community they serve. In order to know about the educational needs of the local communities, they were mandated to conduct frequent surveys and subsequently adapt the programs of study. Since its founding in 1959, Queensborough Community College has accomplished these goals, even as it has struggled to adapt to a surge in changes within its local community. As QCC enters its fourth year of institutional transformation, preliminary data show improvements. The most dramatic ones refer to the students' perceptions about their own learning; an overwhelming majority found the learning communities and writing-intensive models useful. The vision for the future at QCC imagines all of the college as a cluster of communities of practice, comprising spaces for collaborative faculty research, presentations, publications, or venues where one can safely and openly discuss "war stories." Because transforming the college into a community of practice--or cultivating a cluster of communities of practice--involves allocating funds for faculty to meet with one another to engage in productive dialogue, QCC will continue making a significant investment in faculty development. (Contains 4 graphs and 2 tables.)