In the United States, around 20% of children live below the poverty line. These children are least likely to have access to the federal social safety net, and are at heightened risk for poor health and educational outcomes. While many studies suggest that children living in poverty score worse on cognitive tests than those with more resources, these broad comparisons obscure substantial variability within the group of children living in poverty—some of whom perform quite well. Do these high-performing children simply have patterns of brain development that more closely resemble their richer peers? Our preliminary evidence from a sample of 1,175 9 year-olds living below the poverty line suggests not: patterns of brain activity that are associated with lower performance for children from wealthier families actually seem to be associated with higher performance for children from families in poverty. These qualitative differences may stem from the fact that children from different backgrounds face considerably different barriers to success. I’ll present these findings and discuss my plan to explore features of children’s environment that might explain this dissociation.