This article reports the reactions of twenty-seven professors now teaching in community college leadership programs who responded to the question, "What issues do you emphasize in your courses and what issues most concern your students/practitioners?" It also draws on a separate survey of forty-seven state directors and on the writings of four respected analysts of a generation ago: (1) Howard Bowen; (2) Ed Gleazer; (3) Clark Kerr; and (4) John Lombardi. It is a distillation of opinion shared by people who now or in the past have considered the place of community colleges in the structure of American higher education. The challenges most frequently expressed concern the three perennials: (1) finance; (2) vocational education; and (3) developmental education. A recent addition to these is outcomes assessment. Further concerns include: (1) leadership development; (2) transfer and articulation; (3) the for-profit sector; (4) program completion rates; (5) faculty concerns; (6) institutional identity; (7) physical plant; and (8) evidence-based decision making.