For many years, the resilience phenomenon in populations at-risk has been a major focus in trying to understand and explain why some people who experience challenging and stressful experiences are able to overcome these negative adversities and adapt competently. Resilience has been found to consist of different protective factors that are essential for an adolescent to respond to stress and adversity in competent ways. By taking a qualitative approach, this study focuses on educational resilience and the protective factors that resilient adolescents implicitly know are necessary to stay academically successful during the transition to high school. Participants were adolescents from urban, low-income, minority groups. Findings show nine different protective factors identified by resilient students as being important factors for ones' academic success: (1) individual aspirations; (2) personal factors; (3) academic behaviors; (4) family support; (5) academic environmental factors; (6) other support factors; (7) positive social behaviors; (8) negative social behaviors; and (9) spirituality. (Contains 22 references.) (Author/JDM)