Leaders in all sectors--government, business, philanthropy--are calling on American colleges and universities to enroll and graduate more students to bolster the nation's economic competitiveness and to enhance its standard of living. The urgency of strengthening college opportunity informed President Obama's articulation of what amounts to a national goal for higher education--that the U.S. will have the best-educated workforce in the world by 2020. But the collective effort to strengthen higher education performance has yet to materialize. And in the current environment, the public is wary of ambitious new initiatives that may fail to deliver. Over the last year, instead of vigorous debate about strategies for increasing educational attainment, everyone saw technical arguments among a few think tanks and foundations about how goals are set. This paper offers several recommendations that can help leaders strengthen college opportunity and performance.