Over the past four decades, there have been numerous discussions on student achievement and school failure. Within this time, the debate over the causes and consequences of racial differences in achievement has been at the heart of the nation's social and political life. The author discusses the major developments in achievement research over the past century and examines the foremost explanations given for racial differences in school performance, namely, genetic deficiency, social class and cultural poverty, low teacher expectancy, and student oppositional identity. The article addresses the strengths and limitations of the existing body of work and concludes with directions toward a student-based inquiry approach to achievement research aimed at filling in some of the missing information in the literature. (Contains 1 note.)