Desegregation in elementary schools in Springfield, Massachusetts, must be rated a success. Implementation of the desegregation program, which became a reality in 1974, was successful because of the following factors: strong leadership from the superintendent; support of the mayor and the school committee (in spite of their opposition to mandatory busing); support from the community and the media; the past history of desegregation in Springfield (the junior high and high schools were already desegregated); the fact that Springfield is a medium-sized city with no neighborhoods physically isolated from one another; and the flexible design of the plan, which left no group out and took neighborhoods into account. Successful follow-through of the desegregation program involved: (1) fine-tuning of the original plan through the use of magnet schools; (2) attempts to overcome disparity in achievement by providing additional staff to better meet the needs of individual students; and (3) activities implemented to involve students in interactive situations, such as mini-courses selected on the basis of interests, science lab programs, theater arts experiences, the use of music resource teachers, field trips, and Spanish conversation lessons for non-Spanish speaking elementary students. The success of this follow-through was possible only because of funds provided under Chapter 636 of the Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act. (CMG)