This paper examines the influence of race and ethnicity on who goes to college and who graduates, and discusses policy issues surrounding higher education access and outcomes. Based on case studies of 10 majority institutions in 8 states, the paper proposes a conceptual scheme for dealing with such issues as the appropriate balance between equality of educational opportunity and distributive justice, state goals with respect to this balance, the role of colleges and universities in state efforts to achieve such goals, estimation of progress toward attainment of these goals, and policy options to encourage all institutions to emphasize both quality and diversity. It also proposes a method for tracking higher education participation and achievement rates for states and for institutions. Finally, the paper reports the results of applying this method to data available from the United States Office of Education for the period 1980-84. Includes 12 references. (JDD)