Years of data have consistently underscored the persistent graduation gap between America's students of color and their peers. The most recent estimate shows that high school graduation rates for African American, Latino, and American Indian students hover only slightly higher than 50 percent. This is more than 20 percentage points lower than that of their white peers. In addition to the moral imperative to provide every student with an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream, there is also a strong economic argument for helping more students of color graduate from high school. Graduating more students of color from high school can have a profound impact on increased earnings potential, home and auto sales, and other important economic indicators for communities and states. A rapidly changing demography--with communities of color growing swiftly--will only amplify this economic argument; if the nation's high schools do not begin to better serve the country's students of color today, all Americans will end up feeling the economic pinch. This paper summarizes the estimated economic benefits that the nation's forty-five largest metropolitan areas could expect to see if they were to reduce by half the number of students of color who dropped out from the Class of 2008. These are the estimated benefits that could come from reducing the dropout rate of just one "single" high school class of students of color. [This analysis has been conducted in partnership with Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc. and with the generous support of State Farm[R].]