The purpose of this study was to understand near-peer mentoring emergent in student affairs higher education (SAHE) graduate preparation programs. Using qualitative methods grounded in a constructivist paradigm and informed by the diverse learning environments (DLE) model (Hurtado et al. 2012), we researched the experiences of graduate and undergraduate students in near-peer mentoring relationships occurring in SAHE preparation program environments. We interviewed 21 SAHE graduate mentors and general undergraduate mentees at three predominantly White research universities in the US. Black, Latinx, multiracial, and Asian American near peers created pedagogical counterspaces in racial microclimates (Harper, 2013; Serrano, 2020). White near peers moved from racial inarticulacy to developing racial literacy. Implications for research include the adoption of near peer to describe unique graduate-undergraduate relationships emergent in SAHE preparation program contexts; the designation of SAHE programs as exosystems (Bronfenbrenner, 1994); the introduction of White racial inarticulacy; and the application of racial microclimate (Serrano, 2020) to near-peer relationships and the DLE model (Hurtado et al., 2012). We also include implications for practice.