While a graduate student at Stanford University, Veronica Mendoza, the author, conducted research on six Latino students from a troubled high school in San Jose, California. The school, located in a crime- and poverty-riddled neighborhood, is predominately Latino. Some of the students may go on to community college, at best, after graduation. Mendoza found that those students who did not attend college took on low-paying jobs and ultimately lived under the same conditions of poverty as their parents. Those that attended college usually had the benefit of an older sibling who had gone to college as well. In this article, the stories of three students from the study who are beating the odds and are now students at San Jose State University are presented: Elizabeth Chavarin, a public relations major; Roger Moreno, a business major; and Rafael Solorio, a justice studies major.