While social workers strive to build disadvantaged African American youths' resilience by improving services, rarely are those youths' perspectives included in research. In a previous evaluation of an after-school program, disadvantaged African American youths prioritized instructors' compassion and said compassion engendered hope. This study explores their connection between compassion and hope more deeply. Focusing on Snyder's hope theory, this study examines the connection between compassion and hope as individual traits (using standardized scales) and as relational, action-based experiences (using qualitative analysis of interview data). Instructor actions that youths identified as compassionate and as engendering hope were encouragement, problem solving, responsive empathy, and affirming that good choices could bring about good futures. Youths built their hope by internalizing their instructors' compassion. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE •Hope itself is not taught, nor is it awakened by imparting cognitive skills or coping strategies-according to youths in this study, hope is ignited by receiving compassion.• Involving disadvantaged youths in cocreating and co-evaluating the services in which they partake affirms youths as experts about how social services foster their development.