Dozens of organizations around the country share the goal of improving Latino college student success, but there's been little progress in closing the educational-attainment gap. The desire to close the gap is there, but what has been missing, one education advocate believes, are vehicles for collective action. "Excelencia" in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based education policy think tank focused on Hispanic issues, spearheads collaboration among advocacy groups to improve Hispanic college attendance and graduation rates. "Excelencia" launches a new initiative that brings the leadership of various higher education advocacy, philanthropy, public policy and federal agencies together to work on ways of increasing the number of Latinos earning a college degree. The campaign, which was to launch Sept. 8, follows a policy forum of the same name, "Ensuring America's Future by Increasing Latino College Completion," last spring that brought 80 professionals together in Washington. The effort, to run through Jan. 31, 2011, calls for educational groups to collaborate in order to eliminate competition and unnecessary duplication of programs.