Professors of college chemistry were asked to rank various examples of traditional chemistry knowledge and skills as to their importance for incoming students to possess. A pilot study revealed that the items-all selected from one edition of the American Chemical Society-National Science Teachers Association (ACS-NSTA) Chemistry Achievement Examination-represented attributes viewed as relatively unimportant. The professors then identified 29 personal traits they considered more important for incoming students to possess. Subsequently, these items, knowledge, skill, and personal attributes, were included in a three-part assessment instrument. The instrument was administered to 69 college chemistry professors selected at random and to 37 high school chemistry teachers. The results reveal that the college professors universally identified student personal attributes as significantly more important for incoming students to possess over specific knowledge and skills included in the ACS-NSTA Achievement Examination. Chemistry professors do not find items commonly used to assess success in high school chemistry as important attributes for incoming students to possess. Conversely, high school chemistry teachers regard the knowledge and skill items to be more important for college preparation than personal attributes. 0 1994 by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.CCC 0022-4308/94/070735-131. Ability to relate mathematical concepts to chemistry problem solving. 2. Ability to carry out accurate measurement in the metric system.