To understand student attrition, Mercer County Community College has developed a complementary information system based on: (1) a computerized tracking system following enrollment patterns by semester of entering class; (2) surveys of the nonreturning student populations each semester; and (3) retrieval of demographic and biographic characteristics of the nonreturning students from the computer files. Findings from this information system indicate that a significant proportion of the nonreturning student statistic has been due to intermittent enrollment, change in personal plans, and completion of personal objectives, rather than due to failure of the student or college. Such revised understandings of attrition have consequences in terms of measuring accountability, predicting nonreturn, defining the community college dropout, and developing action programs and services to meet student attrition. (Author)