Poor retention and completion outcomes cast doubts about the ability of higher education to provide a return on the money, time, and resource investment. Accountability for the quality of higher education has been an increasingly significant national issue in higher education over the past decade. As pressures for accountability increase, so does the call for greater oversight. In the United States, the oversight for assuring the performance quality of higher education is accreditation. This study addressed the research problem of how and if a quality assurance process can also be a quality improvement process. Using a phenomenological approach, the study explored how a focus on student success outcomes of retention and graduation has influenced organizational changes for improving student success outcomes in small, private, four-year non-selective colleges. The inclusion of multiple accreditation regions facilitated the exploration of the similarity of changes across one type of college. Through a two-phased approach centered on the accreditor-Department of Education and the accreditor-college relationship, a document analysis and semi-structured interviews examined how the Department of Education instructs accreditors to include certain content to be part of accreditation standards and how accreditors embed Department of Education directives into their own institutional documents to convey the importance student success outcomes to colleges. This phase also explored opportunities accreditors provide to help improve retention and completion. The second phase used semi-structured interviews with Accreditation Liaison Officers at four small, private, non-selective colleges located in four different regions of the United States. An interview with the Accreditation Liaison Officer at each college provided insight about perceptions of the processes and roles of accreditation as they pertained to improving retention and completion outcomes. Overall, the findings suggest that accreditation currently plays a minimal role in improving retention and completion in colleges. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]