This paper's topic is the educational upward mobility of members of the working class. It seeks to find out what makes educational success possible and aims to build a theory of educational upward mobility. Data have been collected through biographical-narrative interviews of Austrian graduates from working-class backgrounds. Their narratives have been analysed abductively, by creating hypotheses from observation of empirical phenomena. As a result, the need for higher education for identity is revealed as a constitutive factor for educational upward mobility. Thus, members of the working class are educationally upwardly mobile when their identities are related to higher education. This finding might explain why policies which do not address fundamental societal and institutional changes often fail to increase the educational success of members of the working class. (Contains 1 note and 1 table.)