Using an ecology model of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1993), I frame the exploration of racial identities of 38 college students with multiple racial heritages. I map the influence of interactions within and between specific environments on students' decisions to identify in one or more of five patterns of mixed race identity found in a previous study.

The identity development of mixed racecollege students, those students whose parents are from more than one federally designated racial or ethnic category, does not appear to follow the path outlined in traditional models of racial identity development (eg, Atkinson, Morten, & Sue, 1979; Atkinson & Sue, 1993; Cross, 1987, 1995; Helms, 1990, 1995). The models' inclusion of a stage or status of immersion in minority culture and rejection of majority culture does not reflect the experience of many multiracial individuals (Poston, 1990; Root, 1996). Even ethnic identity models (eg, Phinney, 1990) fail to capture the complexity of multiracial identity. The experience of falling outside the monoracial norm assumed in the United States prompts many individuals of mixed heritage to question the validity of racial categories and the necessity of rigid identification within existing categorization schema (Kilson, 2001; Renn, 2000; Root; Wallace, 2001). Indeed, mixed race college students may identify differently depending on campus sociocultural contexts (Renn; Wallace), an outcome seen not as identity exploration, indecision, or diffusion, but as a healthy endpoint in itself (Root). The purpose of this study was to explore the influences of postsecondary environments on the identities of mixed race college students by examining the processes and contexts of racial or ethnic identity development through the lens of a developmental ecology theory.