A gap in scholarly studies exists for examining African American women's (AAW) perceptions of success factors which enable them to become members of the Senior Executive Service (SES). Evidence of low representation of AAW in the SES directed this research toward identifying perceived key success factors and the importance AAW placed on these factors for progression to the senior levels of the federal government ranks. This quantitative study's research questions set major study objectives by addressing (1) AAW's perceptions of key success factors, (2) the relationships between emotional intelligence (EI) and perceptions of success factors, (3) relationships between perceived difficulty to achieve SES ranking and perceptions of success factors, and (4) relationships between demographic variables and perceptions of success factors. A Web-based survey was conducted to examine perceptions of 190 AAW serving in the SES, GS-15, and GS-14 federal ranks. This study measured perceptions of mentors, informal networks, role models, emotional intelligence and organization diversity practices among other variables. Results suggest that AAW perceived the study's key success factors were important for career advancement in the federal government. Results also suggest that participants attribute their own career success to internal factors such as education, hard work, and effort. Between-group comparative analysis revealed that SES perceptions were not significantly different from perceptions of GS-15s and GS-14s. Results also suggest that when selecting from a list of factors, participants typically chose internal factors versus external key success factors as the basis for their career success. Opportunities for future research exist for replicating the study with a larger sample of each grade to expand on the study of success factor perceptions. Benefits of this study include increasing AAW's awareness of key success factors and providing tools for managers seeking to enhance workforce diversity policies. Further, this empirical analysis may leverage fruitful opportunities for managers and organizations to enhance career development and diversity recruiting programs that may facilitate increasing AAW's awareness for external key success factors.