Strain theory has a long tradition in the study of crime and deviance. It was reborn in 1992 as general strain theory (GST) focusing primarily on adolescents. Few studies examined college-age youth. It was determined that there was an empirical void to be filled. This study attempts to begin to fill this empirical void by examining the determinants of offending for a sample of young adult respondents aged 20 to 29. A model was developed and applied that included measures of strain as traditionally conceptualized, as well as measures associated with the “general” version of strain theory. The objective was to assess the utility of strain measures for understanding criminal offending. Data for the study came from the National Youth Survey (NYS) which was a panel study of delinquency and drug use based on a nationally representative sample of respondents in the United States. The results were reasonably supportive of GST. The strain measures tended to have stronger and more consistent effects on violent crime than property crime. The analyses were able to determine whether the distal determinants of criminal behavior highlighted by GST affected offending for a relatively neglected segment of the population and whether a measure of common forms of depression was interrelated with strain and offending in theoretically predicted ways for the young adult populations. Appendix and references