This study was conducted in the framework of the study "Cultural Capital and the Reproduction of the Intelligentsia in Poland and Russia." The authors undertook an attempt to test the hypothesis advanced by authors such as P. Bourdieu and G. Eyal, I. Szelenyi, and E. Townsley concerning the return of the dominating role played by cultural capital in the organization of postcommunist societies in Central and Eastern Europe. In the quantitative segment of the study presented in this article, the focus is on cultural capital's role in the accessibility of higher education in Poland and Russia. A survey was conducted in 2004 among students at state-run and private colleges and universities in Moscow (n = 1,550) and Warsaw (n = 1,556), using questionnaires that had been adapted in content and form to local conditions. Partial use was made of questions from surveys of Warsaw colleges and universities within the framework of studies conducted in 1958 to 1983 at the University of Warsaw by Professor S. Nowak. This made it possible to conduct a comparative analysis of the opinions of Warsaw college students currently and during the communist period. A primary purpose of this study was to compare cultural capital's role in the reproduction of successive generations of potential intelligentsia in Russia and Poland. (Contains 4 figures, 21 tables and 13 notes.)