A strain tolerant recycled bitumen pavement composition comprising aggregate, recycled bitumen, and a specialized polymer modified bitumen. The specialized polymer modified bitumen may comprise bitumen and polymer, where the polymer comprises a preponderance of butadiene. The amount of recycled bitumen in the composition may be greater than 5% of the composition. Such high levels of recycled bitumen in a pavement composition, while desirable both economically and environmentally, typically produces layers with poor strain tolerance. The strain tolerance of the layer produced with the composition of the present invention, however, may be significantly higher due to the inclusion of the specialized polymer modified bitumen.