The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been responsible for providing education programs for American Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos for over 100 years. Efforts have been made to assess and meet the educational needs of Native Americans, but there have been challenges in determining needs and planning programs due to the diversity of the population and the recent use of specific language in educational goals and objectives. A design for educational needs assessment was developed in 1972 to improve Bureau-wide decision-making and evaluation competencies.