The number of undergraduates with diverse linguistic backgrounds currently enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities has increased dramatically over the past decade. Many of these students are international nonnative English speakers, resident bilinguals, and bidialectal speakers of African American English (AAE). Challenged by a host of language and literacy factors that influence their acquisition of academic discourse practices, many of these learners do not persist to degree completion. Therefore, it is imperative that educators understand how these undergraduates draw upon non-academic literacy events and culturally-influenced learning strategies as they seek to mitigate language differences and appropriate the reading and writing practices of higher education. This dissertation employs qualitative methods to examine the experiences of academic literacy development by three linguistically diverse undergraduates. This study is framed by sociocultural learning theories, foregrounded in the fields of New Literacy Studies and Linguistic Ethnography. Social and cultural contexts were central to the language and literacy learning of the participants. The study found that classroom instructional practices often served as an impediment to the participants' mastery of academic discourse practices. It also found a connection between participants' self-sponsored literacy events and the development of academic literacy. In addition, the study revealed a compelling link between participants' learning strategy use, self-efficacy, and academic performance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]