For many students, making their way to higher education requires more than hard work and determination. Low-income minority students who overcome obstacles to achieve academic success have usually encountered at least one college-educated adult in their schooling who took the initiative to reach out to them and provide concrete academic guidance.

In this book, sociologist Roberta Espinoza introduces the idea of pivotal moments interventions that point the way toward college, particularly for students from working-class or ethnic minority backgrounds. These pivotal encounters and...