A gap exists between the degree to which African Americans embrace the cultural value of higher education attainment (Butchart, 1988; Du Bois, 1935; Mickelson & Greene, 2006; Washington, 1900; Woodson, 1919) and the reality of their unsatisfactory undergraduate degree attainment at traditional white institutions (TWIs) (Allen, 1992; Allen, Jayakumar, & Griffin, 2005; Brown, 1994). Metaphorically, the jar is both half-empty and half-full. The three-fold objective of this article is to describe what the jar of degree attainment looks like for African American undergraduates at TWIs; to outline the role that parents' early and sustained academic expectations play in creating a home environment for their sons' and daughters' academic achievements in Pre-K-12 education and beyond; and to clarify and expand upon the position that educators have taken that early and sustained academic preparation is the key to increasing the pool of African American students who attend and graduate from TWIs. In this article, the socially constructed concepts of "African American" and "black" are used interchangeably to describe Americans who identify themselves as having historical origin from West Africa.