<p> <b>Background:</b> Advanced nursing education needs to be pursued along the continuum of the nursing career path. This education process is indispensable to the role of the nurse as educator, manager, nurse leader, and researcher who will effect policy changes and assume leadership roles as revolutionary thinkers in addition to implementing paradigmatic shifts. </p><p> <b>Purpose:</b> This grounded theory study sought to unearth the critical factors that motivate nurses to advance academically. The study aimed to gain an understanding of the social processes associated with the decision of diploma and associate degree nurses to advance their nursing education. </p><p> <b>Philosophical Underpinnings:</b> A qualitative methodology in the tradition of grounded theory using the constructivist and interpretivist approach was used to conduct the study. </p><p> <b>Method:</b> Data were collected from two groups of participants using a face-to-face semistructured interview. The first group was diploma and associate degree nurses, and the second group was a focus group comprising of baccalaureate, masters, or doctoral degree nurses who have progressed academically from diploma or associate degree level. </p><p> <b>Results:</b> Emerging from the thick rich data that were collected from the research participants were the following core categories that ground the theory: rewarding, motivating, and supporting for diploma and associate degree nurses to advance academically. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> The study concluded by elucidating that professional advancement was the social process that grounds. Hence, the emergent theory was; <i>The Theory of Professional Advancement.</i></p>