Findings suggest that culturally-grounded normative education and resistance skill building interventions in the fifth grade may not demonstrate an immediate effect in reducing substance us or affecting the precursors of such behaviors; in the fifth grade version of “keepin’ it REAL,” substance use prevention intervention did not demonstrate consistent, immediate, or short-term effects on participating students’ substance use behaviors or on the expected mediators of the curriculum’s effect on participants’ substance use (participants’ refusal efficacy, use of resistance strategies, decisionmaking style, substance use norms, expectancies, or intentions). Of the two significant differences that emerged between the control and the multicultural conditions, one did not support the effectiveness of the intervention. The standard, multicultural version of the intervention did appear to contribute to greater increases in the number of resistance strategies used to respond to substance use offers and thus was successful in one of its primary pedagogical strategies. However, students receiving the intervention also increased in their perceptions of the proportion of their peers who had tried substances more than control condition students. Data were collected from 1,566 students using a questionnaire administered toward the end of fifth and sixth grade. Tables and references