An explanation of why Asian American students perform better than others in school may lie in the nature of the learning programs they receive at home. The purpose of this paper is to define such programs that account for most of the differences in academic achievement among racial/ethnic groups. Data were used from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 concerning family characteristics and learning activities at home from parents and students, as well as school experience and school performance of students, and the findings from previous research in the area of student performance. Areas analyzed involved such categories as demographic environment of the family, discipline and effort, parental assistance, educational pressure, and educational opportunities. The first analysis examined whether the selected variables of learning programs at home were significantly related to student achievement as measured by the combined test scores of students on reading and mathematics tests. A second analysis examined whether there were differences in these variables between Asian American students and students from other racial-ethnic backgrounds. Two major findings were drawn from the study: (1) learning programs at home are important factors in student academic achievement (students from families supportive of learning are likely to have high achievement scores); and (2) learning programs at home account for most of the difference in student achievement among racial-ethnic groups. (Contains 22 references.) (GLR)