The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL): Performance of African Americans in a National Context Sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) the 2003 NAAL was America's most comprehensive assessment of adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). NAAL was a nationally representative assessment of English literacy among American adults age 16 and older. The 2003 NAAL was administered to provide information about the literacy skills of adults in the United States. Educators, researchers, policymakers, and business leaders may use NAAL data to design programs that will assist in improving the literacy skills of America's adults. Two main research questions largely were used to inform the NAAL study. The research questions were: (1) To what extent have the prose, document, and quantitative literacy of America's adults changed between 1992 and 2003? and (2) What is the status of prose, document, and quantitative literacy of America's adults now? Using the 2003 NAAP data, this paper analyzed the performance of African Americans in a national context. The analysis of the 2003 NAAL data portrayed the following information about the performance of African Americans: (1) The performance of African Americans was lower than that of Whites and Asians on all three literacy scales measured- prose, document, and quantitative; (2) The performance of African Americans was higher than that of Hispanics on all three literacy scales measured- prose, document, and quantitative; (3) The higher the educational level of African Americans, the higher their performance on all three literacy scales measured- prose, document, and quantitative; and (4) The average scale scores of African Americans were below the national average on all three literacy scores measured- prose, document, and quantitative; Caution should be applied in making inferences with the findings from the 2003 NAAL data. NAAL only measured literacy in English language.America is developing into a multi-linguistic society. Therefore, many America's adults may be more literate in languages other than English. For example, some Hispanics and Asians may be more literate in Spanish and Asian languages respectively than in English. (Contains 6 tables.)