Organizations of all sizes and types rely on top executives to navigate their competitive environments and business schools play an important role in developing these future leaders. While attention has focused on building general leadership skills, we don’t know enough about factors leading business students to consider someday becoming chief executives. This paper relies on Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior to examine factors that promote, or impede such aspirations. Using a sample of 272 business students, we found that each of the model’s constructs, behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs and control beliefs impact students intentions about someday becoming a top executive. Recognizing a concern that men are more likely than women to pursue top leadership positions, we conducted a follow-up study and discovered that the model’s constructs fully mediate the impact of gender on CEO intentions. Our study found that women, on average, report lower intentions to become a top executive but this impact is explained by women reporting lower normative, control and especially behavioral beliefs regarding the top executive position. Implications for future research and business school faculty and professional staff are discussed.