This is a phenomenological research study of the lived experience of women student mentors at one community college located in an urban setting on the West Coast. The study participants were women students who served as mentors to other women at the community college who are participants in a returning women's program. The researcher interacted with the study participants over a nine-month time period. Interviews were held with the six mentor participants prior to their mentoring experience, during the time of the mentoring experience, and at the end of the mentoring experience. The data for this study consist of interviews, observation, and field notes. The mentoring program coordinator was also interviewed to provide for triangulation of data. Six themes emerged from the interviews with the participants and subsequent analysis of the data: Reflecting on past experience, wanting to help, setting and maintaining boundaries, experiencing strong emotions, relational support from other women, and mentoring as a reciprocal relationship. The resulting implication for practice recommendations from this study for community college administrators and student service professionals designing or implementing mentoring programs are: provide training for mentors, provide ongoing support for mentors, offer an orientation for the mentees on responsibilities and expectations, design the mentoring program to provide a full academic year for the mentor-mentee pair to meet, provide benefit and rewards for serving as a mentor, and ensure adequate staffing of the program. Recommendations for further research on student mentoring are provided. They include additional research in the areas of women as student mentors, men as student mentors, comparison of the experiences of male and female mentors, retention studies on students who serve as mentors, college credit and training for mentors, mentoring programs across individual college campuses, and a statewide view of mentoring programs on college campuses. / Graduation date: 2006