This study considers academic risk and resilience in the context of economic disadvantage, examining the associations among such disadvantage, parental involvement in education, and children's academic orientation in a sample of 489 inner-city families. Neither parents' nor children's engagement in the educational system was significantly associated with a multidimensional scale of economic disadvantage after accounting for demographic characteristics and children's academic achievement. The association between parental involvement and academic orientation, however, differed by level of economic disadvantage. In economically disadvantaged families, parental involvement was associated with greater levels of child academic orientation. In other families, parental involvement and academic orientation were inversely associated with each other. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)