Completion by Design, an initiative sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to raise community college completion rates for large numbers of students while containing college costs, maintaining open access, and ensuring the quality of college programs and credentials. The goal of this guide is to assist community college faculty, staff, and administrators as they begin rethinking and redesigning their systems, programs, and instruction to increase student completion. The guide identifies the goals of the Completion by Design initiative; summarizes key design principles for improving completion rates; and, in the process, offers a common language for initiating this work. [Completion By Design is an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Postsecondary Success Strategy. For the companion report, "Changing Course: A Planning Tool for Increasing Student Completion in Community Colleges," see ED585320.]