Fundamental problems in social psychology are being explored through a program of research among the totally blind. This article presents comparative findings on the occupational aspirations of children and adults, both Negro and white, all of whom have been blind from birth or early childhood, plus collateral findings on the parents and sighted siblings of the blind children. Neither ignorance and fantasy nor the sense that they have been labeled and consigned to a brutish existence—both plausible hypotheses—have, in fact, shaped their approach to a career. The burdens of class and race that weigh heavily upon ordinary aspirants are unexpectedly lightened for them, and special processes of socialization within the family and of communication lead to the setting of high but not unrealistic goals.