Adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system face multiple challenges on their pathway to adulthood. These adolescents not only have an increased risk of committing future crimes and are further at risk of not becoming healthy, productive adults. The purpose of this study was to examine the risk and protective factors and associations within and across ecological domains from the perceptions of adjudicated adolescents on their trajectory to adulthood. Qualitative methodology of semistructured interviews of adjudicated adolescents (n=51) were used to understand the perceived needs. Adjudicated adolescents described the importance of the connectedness--both positive and negative--of ecological domains between the individual, family, peers, and community. Furthermore, the adolescents described future goals of economic independence and family, but few provided strategies to gain these goals during their developmental pathway to adulthood. Implications for practice and policy are discussed targeting juvenile justice, education, mental health, and child welfare practitioners. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)