There is ample evidence that children born to poorer families do not succeed at the same rate as children born to the middle class. On average, low-income children lag behind on almost every cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and health measure. These gaps start early--some of the newest research suggests that cognitive gaps are detectable in infancy--and persist throughout childhood and into adulthood. The Center on Children and Families at Brookings research is delving into the reasons for these widening gaps by looking at the life trajectories of more and less advantaged children. Brookings has developed a framework for measuring children's life chances, called the Social Genome Model (SGM). The SGM tracks the academic, social, and economic experiences of individuals from birth through middle age. Using the model, we hope to identify the most important paths to upward mobility. They divide the life cycle into five stages and specify a set of outcomes for each life stage that, according to the literature, are predictive of later outcomes and eventual economic success. The SGM is presented in this report.