Low achievement and high dropout rates among poor and minority students continue to plague U.S. society. While much attention over the past quarter century has focused on reforming the schools these students attend, little or no progress has been made in actually closing the achievement gaps or reducing the number of dropouts. Why? Aren't Americans a "can-do" people? They eradicated the childhood scourge of polio, built the best road system since the Romans, put men on the moon, outlasted the Soviet Union, and created universities that are the envy of the world, but the problem of underachievement by poor and minority students has confounded them. High-level commissions issue warnings, governors hold summits, think tanks produce reports, scholars write books, and Congress passes laws, but the U.S. has failed to deliver on its promise to provide a high-quality education to every child. In this article, the authors contend that closing achievement gaps requires attention to issues of race and poverty, and propose the use of Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" as a useful method for visualizing the remedy for the chronic problem of low achievement of poor and minority students. (Contains 1 figure and 24 endnotes.)