This paper reports on a continuing study of Australian Aboriginal and Navajo Indian children. The study investigates the relevance and applicability of goal theory to explaining indigenous minority motivation in school settings. Task, ego social solidarity, and extrinsic goal structures were examined as a means of explaining and predicting minority motivation in school settings. Data on how these groups conceptualize education were obtained through interviews and a questionnaire completed by more than 100 Aboriginal parents and interviews with members of the Navajo community and educators. Aboriginal students (n=496) in grades 7 through 12 in high schools in New South Wales and Navajo students (n=529) in grades 9 through 12 at Window Rock High School on the Navajo Reservation were surveyed with an instrument developed for the study, the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM). Explanatory factor analyses of the ISM offered considerable support to the Personal Investment Model of M. L. Maehr (1984) and supported the predictive power of the ISM as an indicator of student attitudes and performance. Both Aboriginal and Navajo students were highly goal directed. Group leadership and social concern were also important, but some factors previously considered key determinants of poor achievement and dropping out among these students were not found to be very influential. (Contains 4 tables and 42 references.) (SLD)