To determine how some learning disabled students manage to achieve success in college, a study investigated the extent to which successful learning disabled college students demonstrate characteristics often attributed to learning disabled students in general: inactive learners who fail to use efficient, organized strategies and who lack self-knowledge about the nature of their disability, about its limitations, and about general strategies for coping with their disability. Subjects, three junior and one senior learning disabled college students, were interviewed and administered the "Advanced Reading Inventory." Results indicated that these students overcame their learning disabilities by applying sound reading skills and a range of strategies to exploit their strengths and cope with their learning disabilities. Specifically, findings showed that subjects, when reading the passages aloud and talking and writing about them, made use of (1) several metacomprehension word attack strategies for text processing, including text structure clues, prior knowledge, and strategic learning; (2) two macrorules for summarizing text: deletion and generalization; and (3) self-awareness attribution patterns and the following coping strategies: using strengths, limiting ths use of the deficit area, and getting help from a tutor or monitor. These findings suggest that personal responsibility for learning outcomes can be reinforced in learning disabled students by developing healthy, internal attributions for academic success and failure, and by encouraging learning disabled students to exploit their strengths and to develop appropriate coping strategies. (Excerpts from interviews and reading protocols, as well as five pages of references are included.) (JD)