This paper outlines a study currently underway to explore the pre-K through postsecondary educational lives of first-generation college, Alaska Native graduates of the University of Alaska Anchorage between the years of 1975 to 2005. Background Access to higher education is one of the most pressing social justice issues of our time. From an economic standpoint, we know that higher educational attainment levels correlate to higher incomes. A higher income affords greater opportunities to purchase health care services, remain in stable housing, and access additional education. More importantly, in our increasingly complex, global and diverse world, quality education and access to higher education is required so that all citizens can actively participate in the decision-making processes determining the future of their communities. Despite educational intervention efforts, affirmative action, and federal financial aid, the statistical odds of earning a college degree in this country if you are poor and/or nonwhite remain much too low. In Alaska, the odds of earning a college degree if you are an Alaska Native also remain much too low. Levine and Nidiffer (1996) detailed the decreasing odds along the pre-K through postsecondary education continuum of successful educational achievement by U.S. children raised in poverty. They estimated that a child from a poor community was twenty times more likely not to graduate from college than a child from a middle class family. The central focus of their report, Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College, is the students they describe as the anomalies, the students who “beat the odds”, reaching and entering the college doors despite the barriers to academic success presented by extreme poverty. Their study participants, twenty-four, first-generation college students, were asked to identify the relationships, activities, and events in their lives that they believed helped them to succeed. Alaska Native students also experience decreasing odds of success along the pre-K to postsecondary educational continuum. Alaska Native college attendance and attainment has increased over the last three decades (Goldsmith, Angvik, Hill, & Leask, 2005). However, it lags behind the steady increase of college attendance and attainment by non-native Alaskans during the same time period. Without a college degree, Alaska Natives remain underrepresented in many professions. This paper outlines a study currently underway that is reminiscent of and resonant with the work of Levine and Nidiffer. The study seeks to examine the experiences of first-generation college, Alaska Native alumni of the University of Alaska Anchorage who beat the statistical odds and attained a baccalaureate degree. The study spans the graduation years of 1975 to 2005.