Currently, there is an achievement gap between African American students and White students that implies that African American students are not performing well academically in the K-12 environment. However, there are some African American students who are earning high scores on standardized tests. So, this phenomena was examined. If all African American students are being exposed to the same or similar learning material, pedagogy, and institutionalized racism in the K-12 environment why are some achieving while others are failing. Previous research does conclude that African American students’ surrounding community, home structure, and peers do have an impact on their performance in the classroom. So, this qualitative study investigated the impact of these three out-of-school factors on African American students’ academic performance in the K-12 environment, which can explain the variances in African American students’ academic achievements. The researcher interviewed 10 African American traditional college students, 3 attending a public university and 6 attending a private college, and 1 who transferred to a community college from the private college during the time this study was being conducted to gather data to determine if these three out-of-school factors help African American students perform well or poorly academically.