A correlational research design was used to examine the influence of superintendent tenure on student achievement in rural Appalachian Kentucky school districts. Superintendent tenure was compared to aggregated student achievement scores for 2011 and to changes in students' learning outcomes over the course of the superintendents' tenure. The relationship between superintendent tenure and changes in student achievement scores was statistically significant. A regression test indicated a significant correlation between the two variables, (r [44] = 0.75, p less than 0.01). Data also indicated that students demonstrated significant growth in achievement test scores when superintendents served more than five years in the same school district, as shown by an independent samples t-test (t [43] = 2.01, p less than 0.01). (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)