This study was conducted to understand the reading challenges of underprepared college students. A sample of the participants were enrolled in supplemental literacy programs because they were deemed not ready for reading and writing in college. Community college participants completed a series of measures that assessed foundational skills for reading, bridging and elaborative inferences processes, a comprehension measure that reflected close comprehension of a text, and a scenario-based assessment that involved problem solving with texts. Results suggest that bridging inferences were predictive of performance on measures of close comprehension, whereas elaborative inferences were predictive of performance on the scenario-based assessment. In terms of enrollment in supplemental literacy programs, variability in foundational skills and inferencing did not differ as a function of enrollment in these programs. However, underprepared students in this sample had greater difficulty engaging in complex literacy tasks that involved the application of information when compared to better-prepared students. [This paper was published in "Discourse Processes" v57 n5-6 p473-490 2020.]