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Academic failure lowers self-esteem among students whose self-esteem is contingent on academics; laboratory experiments show that learning orientations reduce this vulnerability. To test whether mastery goals reduce ego-involvement or simply alter the circumstances under which failure lowers self-esteem, we examined students’ vulnerability to poor grades in the classroom. One week prior to receiving grades on a term paper, 142 college students completed measures of baseline trait self-esteem, mastery goals, and academic contingency of self-worth; after receiving their grade, they completed a measure of state self-esteem. Controlling for trait self-esteem, we found a Mastery Goal X Contingency X Grade interaction on posttest state self-esteem. Among highly contingent students, mastery goals predicted greater self-esteem vulnerability to grades and ability-validation goals fully mediated the Mastery Goal X Grade interaction. This study suggests that mastery goals do not always create resilient self-esteem among highly contingent students.