Solving problems creatively requires both motivation on the part of the subject as well as a moment of inspiration, among other things. Two aspects of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, were looked at in this study. Inspiration was conceptualized as “flow”, as elucidated by Csikszentmihalyi (Csikszentmihalyi,1995). These variables have been linked to children\'s performance on creative problem solving tasks. The relationship between the two types of motivation, “flow”, and problem solving performance was investigated. It was theorized that the flow would mediate motivation and creative problem solving skills. The following instruments; ‘Motivation Scale’(Choe, 2002), ‘Flow Scale’(Csikszentmihalyi, 1995), and ‘Creative Problem Solving Test’(Cho, 2001) were administered to two hundred and thirty five 6th graders from a metropolitan area elementary school. The subjects were 120 males and 115 females. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling showed that both types of motivation were positively correlated with the flow. Since the flow was correlated with creative problem solving, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation affected problem solving skills through the flow. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation was correlated with creative problem solving ability. This direct influence on creative problem solving was not found in extrinsic motivation. The results indicate that intrinsic motivation influences creative problem solving abilities both directly and indirectly. “Flow” works as a mediating variable between creative problem solving and extrinsic motivation as well as being an intrinsic variable in it\'s own right.