This study examined college students' motivational tendencies as predictors of academic outcomes and tested how students' goal orientations and academic delay of gratification mediated these associations. The study used data, previously analyzed in 1999, on academic delay of gratification, personal achievement goal orientations, self-efficacy, test anxiety, demographics, time dedicated to studying, and college grade point average. The results show that students' task goal orientation and academic delay of gratification mediate the relationship between self-efficacy and the time students dedicate to study. These results are considered under the umbrella of Zimmerman's cyclical model of self-regulation, which posits that learners engage in sustaining cognition, behavior, and emotions to pursue academic goals and intentions. The findings are also consistent with Mischel's self-regulatory approach, which assumes that effective delay of gratification is a function of motivation and voluntary postponement of immediate gratification in order to pursue later outcomes. The results demonstrate that students who have high self-efficacy are engaging in academic tasks for the sake of learning and mastering work, delay gratification and persist longer in goal directed study time. Implications for education and future research are discussed. Appended are: sample items from the Academic Volitional Strategy Scales and from the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey, Test Anxiety, Self-Efficacy and Reliability Cronbach Alphas. (Contains 39 references, 2 tables, and 2 figures.)(SM)