This study investigated the effect of accounting background and gender on students? performance in principles of accounts in colleges of education in North -Central State of Nigeria. To carry out the research, five research questions were raised to guide the study while, five hypotheses were postulated and tested at 0.05 level of significant.Quasi experimental design was used for the study. Six hundred and sixty-two (662) NCE 1 Business Education Students of Federal College of Education in North-Central State were used as population of the study and two hundred and sixty one (261) students of Federal College of Education Kontogora were purposively selected as the sample size for the study. Pre-test and post- tests were used as primary data for the study. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the answers to research questions while, z -test was used to test all the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study showed that accounting background had significant effect on performance of students in Principles of Accounts. This is because P-value is lower than 0.05 level of significance. Thus, null hypothesis 1, 3 and 4 were rejected. The study further showed that female students with good accounting background out-performed their male counterparts in principles of accounts. This is because the z-calvalue of 2.686 was higher than z-critical value of 1.96 thus, Null hypothesis 5 was rejected. Based on these findings it was concluded that students with good accounting back ground perform better in accounting courses at tertiary level. It was therefore recommended, among others, that National Commission for Colleges of Education should make a credit in O?level accounting as minimum entry grade for admission into Business Education programme and guidance and counseling programmes should be organized by secondary schools authorities for students on the need to develop interest in financial account, because it will provide them with insight and skills that will enable them perform better in future accounting courses.