The recent resignations of three prominent black female superintendents--Arlene Ackerman of San Francisco, Barbara Byrd-Bennett of Cleveland, and Thandiwe Peebles of Minneapolis--have prompted renewed discussion of the roles race and gender play in the superintendency. Current and former such leaders said in interviews that grappling with negative assumptions and having constantly to prove they were capable made the already difficult job of being superintendent that much harder. The nation's 14,000-odd district superintendents are overwhelmingly white and male. The most recent data from the American Association of School Administrators show that in 2000, 15 percent of superintendents were women and 5 percent were members of racial or ethnic minorities of either sex. A forth coming book on women superintendents reports that they now make up 18 percent of the pool. The little research that exists about African-American female superintendents pegged their portion of superintendencies at 2 percent or less in the middle and late 1990's the most recent data available. (Contains 1 graph.)