This 3-year study examined how 10 Chinese-American families from various socioeconomic and educational backgrounds fostered their children's success in school through personal, family, ethnic community, and mainstream community resources, focusing on the experiences of two particular families. The study grouped the families into three types: (1) those in which at least one parent had been born in the United States and had gone through the American educational system; (2) those in which both parents were immigrants who did not attend school in the United States; and (3) those in which both parents were immigrants who had received some schooling in the United States. The study compares a Type 1 and Type 2 family through case studies of what two such families did to enhance their children's school achievement. It found that Type 1 families did not exhibit the intensive preschool academic preparation, close monitoring behavior, and protective stance associated with Type 2 immigrant families, since the Type 1 families were more secure in the sense that their children will be successful. (MDM)