This chapter addresses three issues. First, it presents details about the research setting, including information about the university and location where data were collected. Second, it introduces the nine research participants. These introductions are mostly narrative and informal, foregrounding the students’ articulations of why they decided to attend college in the U.S. Third, these articulations are situated in relation to research findings on students’ decisions to pursue higher education outside their home countries. Echoing other scholars, I emphasize the multifaceted nature of these nine students’ rationales, which reflected a range of hopes and desires, not simply instrumental goals. Additionally, I argue that the students’ efforts to create narratives for why they came to the U.S. should be seen as agentive acts, and that these narratives offer an opportunity to conceptualize links among the students’ pre-college lives, college experiences, and possible futures.