This booklet relates the history of the Career Opportunities Program (COP). The objective of the COP was to provide for indigenous community residents working as paraprofessional teacher aides in the nation's low-income urban and rural schools the opportunity to advance within the education profession and, ultimately, to improve the learning of the children in those schools. The program received Federal support. An important factor in the development of this program was the character of the individual trainee. Belonging to the same ethnic and minority groups as the children with whom they dealt, they brought to the position of teacher aide rapport and sympathetic understanding of the pupils. There gradually developed a cooperative working relationship between schools in the COP program and local institutions of higher learning. Colleges and universities became involved, adjusting credit requirements, recognizing the value of experience, and eventually accepting COP interns as students. This involvement led to the hoped-for end product--a teacher aide could take courses in cooperating colleges and finally receive teacher certification. This enabled many low-income and minority group people to advance in the teaching profession from the modest beginning of helping in the classroom to fully accredited teachers, often achieving degrees beyond the basic B.A. (JD)