This article explores how successful undergraduate students from marginalized communities or historically disadvantaged backgrounds negotiate their performance within a university environment. It addresses one important question: How did they make their way up the academic ladder in the face of hardship determined by their unique historical circumstances? The article challenges the assumption common in current South African literature that students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds are doomed to failure because of a lack, or inadequate forms, of social capital (Naidoo 2004; Jones et al. 2008; Czerniewicz and Brown 2011; Fataar 2012). It shows that, under certain circumstances (e.g., supportive family environment), the background of such marginalized students equips them with the capacity to respond positively and productively to key challenges within the university. At a social level, they have developed their own network skills, resilience, and determination to emancipate themselves from poverty. The authors refer to this phenomenon as ''compensatory capital'' which includes compensatory skills such as coping mechanisms, self-reliance, perseverance, adaptability, and flexibility in the choices they make to their advantage, and the ability to consult or seek advice from older or more experienced people. Such skills also include the ability to work as a group--linked to communal forms of life in the village--with people assisting or supporting each other. At the level of dis- positions and predispositions, while their habitus may conflict with a campus lifestyle, it is essentially their sense of resilience, intrinsic motivation, and self-determination to free themselves from poverty that enable them to adjust to life on campus and cope with new challenges.