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The fact that adolescent residents of smaller communities have lower aspirations than adolescent residents of larger communities is well documented. A number of possible explanations have been suggested: (1) financial resources and needs, (2) educational opportunities, (3) the sociocultural context of community life, and (4) special consequences of farming. However, no previous researcher has attempted a direct empirical evaluation of the relative importance of these explanations. In this paper data from a survey of Canadian high school girls were used to evaluate the first three, since the fourth appears to apply only to boys. This analysis indicates that educational opportunity explains most of the relationship; and when both educational opportunity and community context are controlled, all relationship between community size and college aspiration disappears. Previous research allows tentative generalization of these findings to high school boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]