Given the range of student learning, behavior, and emotional problems experienced each day by teachers and families, meeting the challenge of supplying appropriate support is complex. Efforts to do so may be handicapped by the way in which student support interventions currently are conceived, organized, and implemented. Student supports are frequently mandated, developed, and function in relative isolation of each other. The result is an ad hoc and fragmented enterprise that does not meet the needs encountered at most schools. Over the years that school reform has focused on improving instruction, less attention has been paid to rethinking student supports. As a result, essential resources are not being used in ways that are essential if schools are to accomplish their mission. This concept paper highlights the problem and suggests new guidelines for student support, including: (1) Major areas of concern related to barriers to learning; (2) Timing and nature of problem-oriented interventions; (3) General domains for intervention; (4) Specialized student and family assistance; (5) Assuring intervention quality; and (6) Evaluation and accountability. (Contains 4 endnotes, 4 footnotes and 1 table.)