This article reports the findings of an ethnographic study of Black identity and achievement in one predominantly White high school featuring a racially stratified academic hierarchy (RSAH). Foregrounding the experiences of three exceptionally achieving Black girls against those of other high-achieving but less stellar students, the study demonstrates how an RSAH amplifies and animates Black students' constructions of Black identity to affect how Black youth strategize for academic excellence under second-generation segregation. (Contains 5 notes and 1 figure.)