The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of emotional intelligence and authentic leadership with academic achievement of community college nursing students. A quantitative research method was used for this research. Sample comprised 121 nursing students studying in a community college in the mid-Atlantic region. To obtain the data, GPAs of the subjects for Fall 2015 were used to measure their academic achievement. The subjects were administered the Trait Emotional Intelligence questionnaire (TEIQue) to measure emotional intelligence, and the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) to measure perceived authentic leadership. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, t‐tests, Pearson r correlations, and an ANCOVA model. The statistical data were computed by SAS version 9.2 at an alpha level of 0.05. The correlation between emotional intelligence and GPA was found to be marginally positive, while the correlation between perceived authentic leadership and GPA was marginally negative. The ANCOVA model determined that emotional intelligence had no effect on the GPA, while perceived authentic leadership had an effect on the GPA. The correlational analyses did not indicate statistical significance in predicting GPA based on emotional intelligence and authentic leadership. Implications for leaders in nursing education and recommendations for future research studies have been mentioned.