The goal of the current study was to develop and to validate a research instrument to assess college students motivation to learn online. Considerable research has been done on motivation to learn in traditional classrooms and several instruments to assess motivation in those environments exist. One such instrument is the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, upon which the present research is partially based. Motivation to learn online is not as well-researched and, with the increasing prevalence of online courses, a better understanding of the role of motivation in the online classroom is needed. A valid, reliable instrument to assess motivation in online environments will provide instructors with a powerful tool for creating and assessing optimal online educational experiences. A Motivation to Learn Online Questionnaire (MLOQ) has been developed to assess college students motivation to learn in online classes. This instrument was administered to 160 students in courses taught online at a large public university. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the responses to determine if the hypothesized motivational factors explain the shared variance in the items that are intended to measure pre-defined factors. Additionally, reliability estimates were calculated for the items in each subscale to determine whether those items measure the same construct. Regression analyses were performed to determine if there were relationships between the demographic data and the survey data. The subscales of the MLOQ exhibited high reliability coefficients, however the proposed theoretical model did not fit the data. Gender differences were observed in overall motivation, extrinsic goal orientation, and social engagement, with women scoring higher than men on each of those subscales.