The current article presents a multifaceted model of risk and resilience that employs selected lenses to reveal insights from a variety of disciplines. This enhanced model, originally based on Bronfenbrenner's (1989) ecological framework, was developed to interpret the results of an ongoing study, conducted by the first two authors, of students' resilience in the face of adverse circumstances. The model that we developed allowed us to consider the following aspects: how the combination of school, family, and community supports can function as protective factors for students who face considerable adversity; the way that epigenetics can explain the powerful influence particularly of schools and families on child outcomes even as late as adolescence; how schools can mobilize social and cultural capital for students' benefit; the cascading positive effects of small gains that can ripple and expand over several years; and the way that socio-economic gradients can assess the effectiveness of policy interventions. The proposed model incorporates multiple informative perspectives including the biogenetic basis of resilience; developmental cascades; economic, social and cultural capital; and socio-economic status (SES) gradients that, taken together, address the limitations of Bronfenbrenner's original framework.