The objective of the study was to formulate and contrast a successful aging model derived from the Roy’s adaptation model. A nonrandom sample of 255 adults from six social centers and one clinical center from Nuevo Leon, Mexico was analyzed. A structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. In the final model, the focal stimuli of self-perception of aging and immediate pedestrian environment and the contextual stimuli of depressive symptoms had an impact on coping. In turn, coping predicted successful aging. The model had a good adjustment to the data by adding two correlations between the residuals of the measurement of coping and successful aging. The results suggest that coping is a direct indicator of active aging