The federal TRIO program is an evolving group of national initiatives purposed to serve first-generation college students and students from low-income households, primarily. As a way to broaden educational access and opportunities, institutional leaders apply to operate federal TRIO programs on their campuses. However, the Department of Education periodically defunds these programs at the institutional level. Drawing upon resource dependence theory and building organizational capacity, I studied the aftermath of defunding through a qualitative, multisite case study design. Through analyzing archival materials, institutional documents, and interviews, I explored the following research questions at two universities in the Southeastern United States: 1) Prior to the Department of Education defunding the granted project, what was the scope of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement program or Student Support Services program on campus; 2) how have institutional leaders changed identity-based services that were available to their federal TRIO program participants prior to the Department of Education defunding their granted project; and 3) how do institutional leaders perceive their institutions organizational capacity to provide identity-based services for federal TRIO program eligible students without federal TRIO grants? Ultimately, I found that the scope of the existing programs, the continuation of their services, and institutions capacity to continue services are interrelated. More specifically, the scope of the program and elements of the institutions capacity either propelled or deterred the institutional leaders to continue providing services for the target population. This resulted in distinct differences in how institutional leaders sought to mitigate inequities in educational access and opportunities. Furthermore, several implications emerged from this study.A key implication is that institutional leaders should position their federal TRIO programs on campus with intentionality they should situate federal TRIO programs in units with similar objectives of the programs. In addition, they should devise plans to continue services in ways that their institutional capacity can withstand upon a defunding. Finally, policy makers should consider giving institutional leaders more time to prepare for a defunding and resources to aid them through the process of trying to sustain momentum and services beyond their federal TRIO programs grant cycles.