At the urging of the U.S. Department of Education, regional accrediting organizations have, during the last few years, placed much greater emphasis on implementation of assessment as a requirement for accreditation. The battle to control the terms of assessment and ambiguity surrounding those terms impacts the 3,000 colleges that are subject to accreditation by the regional accrediting bodies. In March 2006, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools reviewed the University of Houston-Downtown to determine if the University's accreditation should be reaffirmed. The review was critical of the University's assessment effort. This article summarizes the experience at UHD and suggests that the reaffirmation process would be more productive for the accreditor and colleges if the accreditor clarifies its assessment expectations in a timely and transparent manner.