Over the last year, the 13 founding intermediary organizations of the Early College High School Initiative and their partners, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Jobs for the Future, reaffirmed and refined the core principles underlying the initiative. All early college schools adhere to these five principles, which together constitute the fundamental beliefs of the initiative. Although all early college schools embrace these essential characteristics, they use a wide range of strategies for attaining them and for meeting the specific needs of their students, communities, and institutional partners.