Responding to demands by parents and a concern that high school was just too easy, the San Jose Unified School District (California) did away with a two-track high school system, demanded that all of its students take a college-prep course of study, and adopted some of the most rigorous graduation requirements in California. In the two-tiered high school system, the top tier was composed of students who aimed the highest--most of them white and Asian--and had nearly exclusive access to college-preparatory and Advanced Placement courses. The second tier was for everyone else--many of the Latino--and offered basic courses and electives that prepared students for little beyond high school. Beginning with the incoming freshmen of 1998, San Jose Unified students became the first high school class in the state to be required to complete the University of California's minimum subject-area requirements for freshman admission--a series of core academic courses and electives commonly called the "A-G sequence." This curriculum includes at least three years of college-prep math, four years of English, three years of science, 3.5 years of social studies, two years of foreign language, and one year of visual or performing arts. The results of this new program have been promising, and San Jose Unified's strategy for raising achievement offers an instructive example to other districts struggling to fix failing high schools and increase minority students' graduation rates. (Contains 3 figures and a photo gallery.)