Information systems adoption by small businesses often is viewed as a basic building block of economic development. Yet, the components that impact business success and thus economic development are mostly unexplored, especially within the context of minority and ethnic communities, both domestically and internationally. Given that IT adoption in small businesses is very often the domain of the business owner, an investigation of how the attributes of individual business owners and the context in which they are embedded is essential. This paper develops an integrative model of the role that IT adoption plays in business success and the economic development process within minority and ethnic communities. The contribution of this paper lies in providing an integrative model of IT adoption that is relevant to small businesses in minority and ethnic communities and a set of theoretical propositions to facilitate adoption of IT in these communities.