Sexual minority youth, i.e., those with sexual attractions, behaviors, relationships, and orientations that are non-heterosexual (Savin-Williams, 2001; Diamond, 2003), remain at the margins of HIV prevention literature despite being classified as one of the highest risk groups of young people in the U.S. High rates of risky sexual behaviors by members of this population are well documented (e.g., Rotheram-Borus & Koopman, 1991; Rotheram-Borus, Marelich, & Srinivasan, 1999; Solorio, Swendeman, & Rotheram-Borus, 2003), yet relatively little is known about the intersections of sexual identity development milestones and risky sexual behaviors among them. Understanding the relationship between these variables may help to reveal contextual influences of risky sexual behaviors that are unique to sexual minority youth, which can then inform the development of culturally-relevant HIV prevention interventions for them. Although the limitations of self-report data on behaviors related to sexuality have been discussed widely, extant studies of adolescents have typically relied on self-administered questionnaires to assess both the prevalence of various sexual behaviors and the timing and sequence of sexual identity development milestones. The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate the utility of the Life History Calendar (LHC) as a complementary data collection method for eliciting retrospective data from sexual minority youth. The LHC is a hybrid data collection method that combines archival, observational, and interview data into one data collection strategy for eliciting information about the sequence and trajectory of personal change over time. The LHC can improve accuracy and completeness of retrospective reports by capitalizing on multiple cues and pathways to trigger respondent recall in a way that traditional surveys cannot (Belli, 1998). The structure of the LHC helps to ensure precision in the timing and sequence of even complex personal events, allowing interviewers to detect reporting gaps or errors and to probe further in order to correct them (Axinn, Pearce, & Ghimire, 1999). The presentation will describe the LHC method and its use, and it will explain its specific utility for exploring differences in the sexual identity development trajectories of sexual minority youth reporting lowest and highest sexual risk behaviors. It will also examine the LHC's advantages and disadvantages, the circumstances under which using it is recommended, and ways in which findings obtained from the LHC can inform the development of culturally-relevant interventions with sexual minority youth. In addition, it will examine the implications for using LHC data to develop culturally-relevant HIV prevention programs for this population. The presentation will use a two-phase sequential mixed method study on the contextual influences of sexual risk behaviors among sexual minority youth to illustrate its points. A tailored LHC was used in Phase II of this study with semi-structured interviews in order to explore the distinctions in, and meanings of, sexual identity development experiences among participants who reported the highest and lowest sexual risk behaviors in Phase I.