This study engages in a rigorous process to develop an instrument, College Students' Financial Stress (CSFS). This instrument aims to assess college students' generalized financial stress, or financial unsafety, to provide administrators with a tool to gauge students' mental well-being and financial experiences in higher education. Accurately measuring generalized financial stress is imperative to developing appropriate student success supports. The study uses a design-based approach (DBR), which iteratively examines and refines the CSFS survey items through several phases. The qualitative field-testing collected data from college students and subject matter experts (SMEs), who were critical to the development and refinement process of this survey. As participants shared their experiences, the researcher uncovered the potential consequential effects of poorly constructed items. Using the DBR methodological approach, this study developed a succinct survey comprised of 18 items, which is a reduction from the originally 60 proposed items. Findings and results from psychometric analyses found that the CSFS has good persons and item separation, fit, "Excellent" unidimensionality and item targeting. The full CSFS can be found in Appendix H. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]