Although college faculty often complain about class attendance, little data are available on why students miss classes and especially why absences are more common late in the semester. To explore this phenomenon, students' abilities to persevere in an academic setting and relate that to their actual attendance and performance in a college class were examined. Whether or not this type of motivation is intrinsic to the individual and her/his self-concept, or is it more situation specific was also explored. Students (N=140) in undergraduate college courses completed a questionnaire about academic perseverance and self-efficacy. Their responses were correlated with both attendance and performance in these classes. Analysis of the data indicated a significant correlation between class attendance and final grade in the course. Correlations among academic perseverance, self-efficacy, class attendance, and course grades were all fairly low. The low correlations could have been affected by range restrictions (in higher level courses there is typically little variation in either grades or attendance behavior). Since motivation may be a multiplicative relationship between self-efficacy and value, students may only be motivated if they feel competent to complete a task successfully. Suggestions for future studies are offered. The Academic Perseverance questionnaire is included. Contains 13 references. (RJM)