Numerous studies have shown that stream habitat degradation resulting from watershed urbanization decreases insect community richness. Species intolerant of degraded conditions are eliminated, while the recruitment of tolerant species increases. However, the distribution of aquatic insect species within and across watersheds is rarely believed to influence community composition in urban streams. The distance to neighboring stream communities and the occurrence of tolerant taxa in neighboring communities may partially determine community composition in urban headwater streams. As a first step to determining if aquatic insects’ geographic distribution influences community composition in urban watersheds, I compared the insect communities of headwater tributaries to main-stem streams in both urban and rural watersheds. I hypothesized that headwater communities are more similar to their associated main-stem communities in urban watersheds than rural watersheds. I also hypothesized that urban headwater communities are primarily nested subsets of their main-stem communities while rural headwater communities are not. Aquatic insect community composition was determined using Surber samples taken from riffles of headwater tributaries and their associated main-stem reaches in three urban and three rural watersheds. Similarity indices calculated for headwater and main-stem community pairs were not different between urban and rural watersheds. Urban headwater tributaries communities were mostly a subset of their associated main-stem communities. Conversely, rural headwater communities were more diverse than their associated main-stem communities and possessed many taxa not found in the main-stem. This suggests that the distributions of aquatic insect populations along the river continuum may influence the response of headwater communities to urbanization.