This monograph describes the current educational status of Latino students in the United States and, based on the extant research, attempts to explain their relatively low educational performance. The research finds many structural and socio-cultural barriers to academic achievement for this group, including poverty, poor schooling, language differences, low educational levels of parents, and lack of social capital. The monograph then suggests several theoretical models to explain why some Latino students, in spite of all of these barriers, manage to defy the odds and succeed academically. The literature on specific social and academic interventions is examined to distill what is known about fostering high achievement in this population. The theoretical models are then married to the intervention literature to suggest both policies and practices that might be expected to yield greater academic achievement for Latino students in the future. (Contains 5 footnotes, 9 tables, and 1 figure.)