This study was designed to answer the question "Does excessive absenteeism affect student academic achievement?" During the 2002-2003 academic year, 188 students attending grades 3 through 5 at an urban Tennessee elementary school with a high poverty level participated in the study. Demographic data were gathered to provide descriptive statistics of the sample. Ethnicity, gender, and grade-level factors on absenteeism also were examined. Independent samples t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures were used to determine the significance at [mu] = 0.05. Statistically significant differences were found between excessive absenteeism and achievement (reading scores), along with absenteeism and ethnicity. (Contains 6 tables.)