African American men have not historically participated in higher education at the same levels or with the same success as others. And, as colleges and universities have sought to diversify their student populations, the rapidly increasing enrollment of Asian American and Hispanic students has illustrated the difficulty in trying to increase the enrollment of Black men in college. Once enrolled, these men similarly have difficulties completing their undergraduate degrees, and without the completion of a college education, they are more apt to participate or succumb to a wide range of social difficulties. Drawing upon a sample of highly educated African American men, the current study sought to identify and describe the variables or factors that they believed were critical to their completion of an initial college degree.