This chapter is part of a book that recounts the year's work at the Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) at Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi. Rather than an "elitist" laboratory school for the children of university faculty, the ECDC is a collaboration between the Corpus Christi Independent School District and the university with an enrollment representative of Corpus Christi's population. The chapter delineates the rise and fall of university laboratory schools in the United States and then describes the ECDC, including its facility, school population, faculty, principal/director, dual-language curriculum, health center, counseling center, training mission, and positive student results on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). The chapter suggests that the ECDC addresses some of the problems of older campus laboratory schools, and at the same time, grapples with some of the major concerns of educators and legislators in the 21st century. (Contains 24 references.) (EV)