This paper reports preliminary findings of a 3-year study examining the ability of qualitative and quantitative measures of the home environment variables (HEV's) to contribute to the prediction of third- through fifth-grade students' achievement and growth scores in reading and mathematics. Data were obtained for 198 parent/student pairs from four rural and small urban Wisconsin communities. Three sets each of achievement and growth scores were regressed on selected variables derived from parents' responses to a half-hour telephone interview. Each regression equation also contained a measure of the child's academic aptitude as the predominant predictor. Several HEV's provided significant and durable additional predictive capacity to that provided by the aptitude index. These included (1) hours of maternal employment (negatively associated with all students' and boys' achievement in both reading and math); (2) family socioeconomic status (positively associated with all students' and boys' reading growth and all students' reading achievement); and (3) parents' feeling that the school's greatest strength was the quality of its academic programs (positively associated with girls' reading and math achievement and math growth). Also examined was the indirect link between home environment and academic attainment through HEV associations with self-concept variables related to achievement. In this case, no substantial link was identified. (RH)