The concept that teacher beliefs about future student achievement may actually influence the subsequent performance of students provides the basis for a model of teacher expectation communication which uses attribution theory as explanatory links in the communication process. These model links were tested in a two-year study involving 16 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classrooms in 5 schools, from which 12 students from each classroom were studied. The frequency of appropriate and inappropriate student responses and of teacher praise, criticism, and ignoring of these responses was recorded at observations throughout the year; teachers also provided attributions for the students' successes and failures. Relations between success attributions and praise, and failure attributions, criticism, and ignoring were investigated. Teachers who used more criticism per interaction cited internal stable causes less often and cited immediate effort causes more often for student failure. Teachers who were freest with praise attributed successes least often to external teacher-related factors. The most freely praised students experienced successes least often due to internal stable causes and most often due to teacher-related causes. Data generally supported the expectation communication model. (NRB)