Although law enforcement and police administration programs have become commonplace at 2-year and 4-year college campuses since the mid-1960's, there has been no general agreement about the aim of that education or about the appropriateness of the curriculum. Police work may be approached in somewhat the same way as medicine. While policing does not require the same substantive knowledge that doctoring does, it does require many of the same intellectual skills based on similar ethical constraints. An educational structure must be devised which allows progression from high school through police specialization with a logical relationship among 2-year schools, 4-year schools, and graduate schools. Because police education must be based on teaching students to apply knowledge to the daily problems faced by practitioners, law enforcement education should take place in the real world in much the same way that medical education takes place. The conceptual model for police education sees the role of 2-year schools as preparing the interested police student for transfer to a 4-year program. Education at the undergraduate level is oriented towards liberal arts and prepolice courses. Beyond the collegiate level is the professional police school. Certification from this school shows competency in that the apprentice/resident is grounded in substantive knowledge that deals with diagnostic skills similar to those which practicing medical doctors use. Competency also means that the police student has not only practiced by has demonstrated ability for systematically analyzing police work. Ten references and two figures are included.