Data from 81 fifth-grade public school students (22 gifted) was used to examine if motivational beliefs function uniquely for gifted students. Within a regular classroom, the relation between student-reported motivation and teacher-reported disengagement varied as a function of gifted status, with performance-approach goals predicting minimal effort for gifted students and performance-avoidance goals predicting several forms of disengagement for typical students. For gifted students, mastery goals were associated with lower levels of off-topic thinking in both the regular and gifted classroom; however, the relations for performance-approach goals varied across context and were only maladaptive in the regular classroom.