College student leadership is common learning outcome in American higher education, but it was not until the past decade when researchers began studying college student leadership using critical theories and perspectives. These scholars criticized that current student leadership models and theories have been representative of White, Eurocentric, and patriarchal ideologies (Dugan & Komives, 2011). As a result, current leadership education is often not culturally relevant to reflect the diverse identities of students of color. Moreover, leadership education continues reinforcing a dominant view of leadership that promotes individualism and capitalism. Under current U.S. context where longstanding racism remains pervasive in harming communities of color, there is an urgent demand for more social justice leaders to tackle challenges facing the marginalized communities. Colleges and universities play an instrumental role in offering leadership education to prepare students as future social justice leaders. However, there remains limited research on social justice leadership development for students of color. Relatedly, little is known about how students of color conceptualize social justice leadership. It is important to study how students perceive leadership because their understanding is closely related to their leadership development, including motivation to lead, leadership engagement, and leadership enactment (Haber, 2012). There is also a need for more studies using critical theories to better understand leadership development for students of color by accounting social identities, context, and power. The purpose of this study is to address the aforementioned limitations. Specifically, this study applies critical qualitative methodology with a focus on power, context, and social identity to investigate college student leaders of color's conceptualization of social justice leadership. By centering the knowledge of 16 college student leaders of color in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the study findings provide empirical insights into the ways students understand social justice leadership. The research questions are: How do college student leaders of color conceptualize social justice leadership? How do they come to develop their knowledge of social justice leadership? In what ways are power, context, and social identities related to their perception of social justice leadership? [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]