African American women are enrolling and returning to college in large numbers across many community college campuses, especially those women who would be characterized as nontraditional students. This qualitative study examined and analyzed the experiences, stresses, and coping mechanisms of first generation, nontraditional, single parent, African American women in an urban community college who come from low social and economic backgrounds. Applying a phenomenological approach, the study explored social, economic, environmental, educational factors and other influences that contributed to their academic experiences. A single stage sampling of a select group of ten African American female participants was interviewed using a series of open-ended and semi-structured questions to recall previous and present occurrences of daily life, stress, coping, and other episodes that presented themselves throughout their academic journey. Interview transcripts were examined using qualitative reduction; the identification of recurrent regularities led to six thematic findings that uncovered the essence of meaning and answered the primary research questions. The research study concludes with a summary and discussion of the findings, discussion of the findings in relation to the literature, limitations, implication of the findings, and recommendations for future research based on the findings of this study. [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.]