This study examines the changed and changing mission of community colleges in the 1990s in the United States and Canada. By narrowing the focus to the geographical area of the Pacific/ Western region, the study seeks to identify the development of international cultural connections consistent with the region and to explain how the globalization process affected college behaviors. Seven colleges were visited twice by a team of researchers over a two-year period. Interviews were conducted with key personnel. The researchers found that in the 1990s, community college leaders embraced a liberal technological philosophy of education, which assumes that education is instrumental and that the technology is part of a global economy where advanced education is best oriented to skills development and marketplace relevance. As a result, the mission of the community college became oriented to economic concerns and to the requirements of the private sector. The new vocationalism in the community college mission addressed the needs of the middle class and the engines of the economy. The institutions' mission also encompassed the acquisition of resources and the prudent ministering of their own financial resources. Colleges also gave considerable attention to multiculturalism and diversity, as reflected in hiring practices, curricula, and extra-curricular activities. (Contains 30 endnotes.) (JA)