The relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement of at-risk adolescent black males was studied for 42 students in grades 6, 7, and 8. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (SEI) was used to provide global measures of self-esteem. School grades and scores from the Stanford Achievement Test battery were used to measure academic achievement. The SEI was found to be a reliable measure of global self-esteem for these at-risk adolescents. Moderate to strong internal consistency measures were found for three of the four SEI subscales. The overall average self-esteem score for these subjects was significantly lower than for most means reported in normative studies for the SEI, but not significantly lower than means reported in studies of rural ninth graders, high school black males, and blacks in grades 3 through 8. Self-esteem was significantly related to standardized test battery composite score and end-of-year school grade average. SEI was also significantly related to grades in English and social studies, but not mathematics and science. Findings suggest that overall self-esteem might be enhanced by increasing school performance in specific academic content areas. One table presents correlations for self-esteem and academic achievement. (SLD)