Using two highly comparable surveys of British and American college graduates seven years after graduation, an analysis of the cross-national predictors of occupational status attainment of the women graduates was developed to test differences in the structural and socialization effects of the two educational systems. Comparative path analyses indicated that: (1) attendance at a prestigious institution was less dependent on social origins but more predictive of occupational status in Britain than in the United States; (2) graduate school attendance was more highly associated with occupational prestige in the U.S. than Britain; and (3) mothering was less likely to take American women than British out of graduate school or a career, though it reduced the time in graduate school and the prestige of early career attainments. Results indicate that British graduate women, selected at an early age on academic criteria, are more readily able to convert their high status undergraduate education into occupational prestige. American women graduates have a less valuable undergraduate degree that is more convertible to high occupational status if it first leads to graduate schools. An ability to overcome obstacles, characteristic of the educated American mother, may well be an unintended consequence of the less supportive, more competitive, environment of the American educational system. (Author/MSE)