The purpose of this study was to test a hypothesized model that proposes a causal relationship between motivation and academic achievement on the acquisition of jazz theory knowledge. A reliability analysis of the latent variables ranged from 0.92 to 0.94. Confirmatory factor analyses of the motivation (standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.067) and jazz theory (SRMR = 0.063) measures indicated a good fit of the predicted model to the observed data. Results of the latent path model indicated good fit (?2 = 20.08, p = 0.692, df = 24, N = 102) and large, positive, and statistically significant direct effects of motivation (ß = 0.65) and academic achievement (ß = 0.56) on jazz theory knowledge acquisition. The successful identification of this proposed model lends enough support for continued investigation into the process surrounding the acquisition of jazz theory knowledge.