This paper presents research results concerning the (re)-construction of the ethnic / national identities of particular minority communities in the Republic of Croatia, as shaped by fluctuations in the social and historical context (over the period when Croatia was part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, thereafter in the periods of democratic transformation, the Homeland War, and the independent Republic of Croatia). We take a multi-method approach, on the one hand exploring the official categorization and classification of national minorities within the Constitution of the FRY and the Constitution of the RC, whilst also examining theoretical and conceptual explanations and their implementation in defining identity. The empirical part includes in-depth interviews with members of different ethnic minority communities living across the territory of present-day Croatia. The paper emphasizes how certain institutional classificatory schemes or historical moments may be imposed or lead to volatility as concerns the strategies, positions and roles of certain minority communities. In addition to the official definition and institutionalized classificatory schemes that are directly attributed to the specific identity characteristics of each group, social identities can be the result of free choice, coercion, strategy games played by individuals / members of certain groups themselves or resources mobilized in order to achieve political or economic goals. Through considering these two approaches to the analysis of national minority identities in present-day Croatia, we elaborate not only the procedural and dynamic character of identity but also its variable and situational nature.