Book excerpt: African American students have historically been labeled as underachievers in the arena of education (Battin-Pearson, Newcomb, Abbot, Hill, Catalano & Hawkins, 2000; Entwisle, 1990; Mickelson, 1990; Kazdin, 1993). Numerous explanations such as education being seen primarily as a White domain, that African Americans who strive to achieve an education are often seen as not being Black enough or that Blacks will be rejected by their peers and community for wanting to be "White" (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986), have been suggested to explain the underachievement of African American students. Others have questioned if the poor performance demonstrated by African American students might be attributed to problems with students' lack of connection with their Afrocentric/racial identity (Datnow & Cooper, 1997; O'Connor, 1997; Sellers, Chavous & Cooke, 1998; Taylor, Casten, Flickinger, Robert & Fulmore, 1994). This study examined three research questions: (1) Is there a relationship between Black students' Afrocentric identity and academic achievement? (2) Is there a relationship between Black students' academic self-concept as related to their racial identity? (3) Is there a relationship between Afrocentric identity and students' desire to attend college? Participants included 84 Black high school senior adolescents from local high schools. Participants were asked to complete four measures to examine racial identity, academic self-concept and academic achievement. The results indicated that there was a significant correlation between racial identity (internalization stage) and academic self-concept. While there was a significant correlation between racial identity and academic self-concept, GPA scores appeared to be a better predictor of academic achievement. Results also indicated that awareness of one's identity, affirmation of Black life, and the development of Black people had a negative impact on one's overall academic performance (GPA). These findings raised issues about racial identity and the desire to achieve academically among African American high school seniors.