In the fall of 1989, the Intersegmental Coordinating Council organized the Data Needs Task Force (DNTF) to determine the feasibility of establishing a transfer rate definition. Specifically, the DNTF was charged with defining the information needed to strengthen intersegmental transfer programs, establishing common definitions (including "transfer student" and "transfer pool"), and reaching agreement on a method for computing a transfer rate. The DNTF evaluated different transfer rate methodologies based on four measures of validity: construct validity; group equivalence; time equivalence; and maturation validity. The longitudinal Transfer Assembly rate specified by Cohen and Brawer (1990) was judged the most useful. Despite the Transfer Assembly rate's high ranking, however, two concerns emerged one in regard to maturation validity and the other in regard to construct validity. The DNTF modified the Transfer Assembly rate to develop the "California Consensus Methodology" (CCM). The CCM follows a cohort of students who entered the California Community Colleges (CCC) as first-time freshmen and earned six or more University of California (UC) or California State University (CSU) transferable units during their first college year. As a component of the CCM, intent-to-transfer among this freshman cohort will also be measured. The CCM will not measure the following: students moving from senior institutions to community colleges; students who transfer into the CCC; and students defined by the four-year institutions as first-time freshman entrants or transfers from other institutions. Appendixes provide alternative measures of the transfer function, a list of DNTF members, and CSU and UC definitions of a transfer student. (JMC)