This study examined the issue of whether any differences exist in school achievement among rural, suburban, and urban school students in four major areas of school learning: reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS: 88), which followed a nationally representative sample of 24,500 students from the 8th to the 12th grade, were used. Performance comparisons among rural, suburban, and urban students were made for the nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in four areas of school learning: reading, math, science, and social studies. Performance comparisons were made after adjusting for the potential influence of socioeconomic status. Performance comparison analyses were conducted separately for the four major ethnic groups (Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) and separately for public and private school students. In addition, performance comparisons of rural, suburban, and urban students were made separately for the four geographic regions of the United States: the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. Classifications of rural, suburban, and urban schools, and of geographic regions, were based on the 1980 Census classification of the schools from which the students were sampled. The results showed that students from rural schools performed as well as, if not better than, their peers in metropolitan schools in math, science, reading, and social studies. Contains 70 references and 7 data tables. (TD)