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This study provides a counter to the narrative that parents, particularly those of first-generation college students, in rural, central Appalachia are barriers to their children’s transition to college. By centering parents’ perspectives in two families in a rural community and two families from the rural periphery of a suburban community, this study examines how parents understood their role in their children’s postsecondary transition. Data are drawn from a critical ethnography spanning the spring of the students’ senior high school year into their first semester of college. Using a funds of knowledge framework, the study identified knowledge regarding applying to college, building aspirations, drawing upon social networks, and critiquing economic inequalities at work within the first-generation students’ parents’ descriptions of their effort. These forms of knowledge were leveraged to support their children’s access to college …