Recent work suggests that the association between socioeconomic status and coronary heart disease may be stronger in adult women than in men. This paper evaluates a parallel to these findings in adolescence (aged 12-17) by examining male-female differences in the association between family income and markers of atherosclerosis in the 1999-2004 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. We found that moving from the 25th to 75th income percentile is associated with up to a 5.4% greater reduction in the probability of low HDL-C in females compared to males, and a 4.5% greater reduction in the probability of high C-reactive protein. No associations are found between income and LDL-C in either sex. A stronger income-adiposity association in females explains part of the C-reactive protein result, but not the HDL-C result. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of lifecourse development of coronary heart disease and related health policy.