Purpose - This paper aims to: extend the concept of "The learning organization" to "The learning community", especially disadvantaged communities; demonstrate how leaders in a migrant community can achieve positive change at the personal, professional, team and community learning levels through participatory action learning and action research (PALAR); and identify the key characteristics of a sustainable learning community. Design/methodology/approach - The paper combines an innovative and creative methodology of PALAR and a new learning system designed by the Global University for Lifelong Learning (GULL). Findings - A lack of cultural understanding on the part of government agencies contributes to a migrant community's socio-economic disadvantage, e.g. high unemployment and crime rates, underachievement in education, exclusion from higher education. The Samoan community is a disadvantaged migrant group in Australia who were helped to help themselves to achieve positive change and quality learning in partnership with university researchers. The use of an enabling framework designed by GULL, mainly for developing countries, also proved to be an effective system for achieving personal and organizational learning in a disadvantaged community in Australia. Practical implications - The findings represented in the conceptual models enhance understanding of the key principles and processes involved in an organizational learning project for sustainable development of a learning community. Originality/value - This is one of the first papers to evaluate and track the learning outcomes in a community applying the GULL system that is used successfully in about 40 developing countries, but has not yet been sufficiently researched and documented in a developed country. Keywords Learning community, Community development, Action learning, Lifelong learning, Samoan migrant community, Positive change, Disadvantaged groups, Organizational change, Learning organizations, Social groups, Australia