While many efforts to reform high schools target large cities, a similar minority located at the fringes of American culture has been relatively overlooked. Low-income, rural students suffer many of the same social maladies--such as severe poverty and widespread drug abuse--as urban minority children, and they are comparably disadvantaged when it comes to college access. These students endure geographic and cultural isolation as well as the fallout from stagnant local economies. Most of the high schools are located in low-income, rural areas that face dwindling enrollments, budgetary cutbacks, high faculty-turnover rates and other significant challenges. Since 2003, the Great Maine Schools Project, a statewide high school reform initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has been working to strengthen Maine high schools and send more Maine students on to higher education. In this article, the author discusses the significance of "Early College" programs which specifically target underperforming and low-income youth who may not intend to enroll in higher education or who may be the first in their family to attend college.