For millions of Americans, community colleges provide an essential pathway to well-paying jobs and continuing higher education. The Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence honors those institutions that strive for and achieve exceptional levels of success for all students, while they are in college and after they graduate. Community colleges have received extraordinary attention over the past year, in the presidential debates, in state legislatures, and in the media. This buzz is about more than the fact that 7 million degree-seeking students are enrolled in U.S. community colleges each year, making up the majority of freshmen and sophomores. It reflects a broad recognition that the nation's ability to develop a talented workforce and equalize opportunity absolutely depends on increasing the success of community college students. Too often, though, that attention focuses on the undeniably low completion rates at community colleges rather than on excellence in the sector. There are nearly 1,200 community colleges in the country. Looking only at their student success averages obscures that some colleges achieve exceptional outcomes. The winners of the 2013 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence demonstrate just what can be accomplished. With this prestigious prize, the Aspen Institute and its partners aim to further the national understanding of how community colleges can increase student success. The winning community colleges profiled in this document have done just that. They have shown that what colleges do matters deeply to student achievement.