We analyze the existence of a cultural component of the formation process of noncognitive skills and we test for whether it affects education and employment outcomes in adulthood. We compare adult outcomes of U.S. second-generation immigrant groups differing in their cultural heritage. We consider two measures of noncognitive skills: country differences in personality traits that children are encouraged to learn at home, and civic capital (Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales, 2010). We find that individuals whose cultural heritage places a higher value on hard work as a quality to encourage in children report higher educational attainment, better occupational status and higher wages on average than those whose culture places lower weight on hard work. Additionally, individuals with a higher inherited civic capital declare a higher educational level, but we find no effect of civic capital on adult labor market outcomes. Hard-work and civic capital jointly account for 70% of a standard deviation of average education across ancestries. A one standard deviation increase in the relevance of hardworking in their country of ancestry accounts for: 70% of a standard deviation of the percentage of workers employed in two top occupational categories, and 16% of a standard deviation of average wages across ancestries.