In some research involving Asian Americans generalizability is questionable because the group under study is composed of persons from many cultural traditions. This study looked at 2,511 4th to 11th grade American students of Asian descent all of whom were members of one of the following Asian groups: (1) Chinese; (2) Filipino; (3) Japanese; (4) Korean; (5) Vietnamese; and (6) other Southeast Asians. The Survey of Achievement Responsibility was used to assess the students' attributional choices for items concerned with academic success or failure. The choices were the following: (1) ability; (2) effort; (3) luck; and (4) ease/difficulty of task. Ethnicity and economic status differences were compared for each attribute. The Asian Americans as an aggregated group attributed academic successes and failures primarily to effort not ability, but different ethnic groups showed differing patterns of attribution. When ethnicity was paired with economic status, the combined frequency showed more attribution of success to ability in the higher economic group. The variability among Asian American groups is clear but more study is needed on variables including or in addition to culture, such as country of origin, reasons for emigrating, and generational factors in order to explain the differences. Figures and a list of references are included. (VM)