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A 21-year-old college student was shot and killed early Friday on Long Island after an armed man broke into the home she shared with her twin sister, held her hostage and then engaged in a gun battle with the police, the authorities said. The man who forced his way into the home was also killed

It was not immediately clear who fired the fatal shots, the police said.

The violence played out in the middle of the night on an ordinarily quiet residential street, only blocks from Hofstra University, where the victim went to school. Students who were preparing for their last day of exams awoke to the news that one of their own had been killed, and the normally festive atmosphere that comes with the end of the academic year turned terribly sad.

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The victim, Andrea Rebello, was a junior from Tarrytown, N.Y., and was studying public relations. She shared the home with her twin, Jessica, and another young woman, the police said. A young man was also staying at the house at the time.

The suspect, who was not identified, knocked on the door of the home around 2:15 a.m., and when one of the residents looked to see who was there, he burst in, according to the police.

He was wearing a ski mask and carrying a pistol, the police said. He held the twin sisters and the young man hostage but let the other woman leave, apparently to go withdraw money from a nearby bank machine, the police said.

That woman called 911, and at 2:29 a.m. she told the police that a gunman was holding hostages at her home.

Within minutes, more than a dozen officers descended on the quiet California Avenue block in Uniondale, N.Y.

“Shortly after our arrival, a shooting took place where the suspect is killed and one of the female victims are killed,” said Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lack of the Nassau County Police Department.

The details of the shooting were under investigation, the police said, but it appeared that the gunman and the police exchanged gunfire. “We are doing a forensic analysis,” said the Nassau chief of detectives, John R. Capece, who said a gun was recovered at the home. “We are going to get to the bottom of what happened.”

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Victoria Dehel, who lives four houses away, said she had just gotten home around 2 a.m. when she heard screaming.

“It sounded like a bunch of drunk college students on a Thursday night and then it just got very loud,” Ms. Dehel said. “I was with my boyfriend, and we were just listening,” she added. “And then the screaming just got worse and worse and worse. And then we heard thuds, like five bangs.

“Me and my boyfriend went on the porch to see what was going on. And we saw cops flying down the block.”

She heard what sounded like a woman pleading for her life. “It didn’t sound good at all,” Ms. Dehel said. “I turned to my boyfriend and I said, ‘I think someone just got murdered.’ It was awful.”

Around the same time, she said, she watched as more than a dozen heavily armed police officers approached the house, some holding bulletproof shields in front of them. The police ordered her to go back inside.

Recordings of police communications paint a picture of a chaotic and frightening scene. In one conversation, officers can be heard saying that the suspect was pointing a gun at the head of one of the hostages.

The overnight shooting stunned students at Hofstra, who were just completing their final exams and preparing for the summer break. The university sent a text message to students on Friday alerting them to the shooting, but providing few details.

Hofstra’s president, Stuart Rabinowitz, issued a statement later confirming that a student had been killed. “We do not yet know all of the relevant details,” he said. “What we do know is that a young member of the Hofstra family has been taken from us in a senseless act of violence. Our hearts and minds and our thoughts and prayers are with her family, her friends and her classmates.”

University officials said commencement ceremonies would go on as scheduled this weekend. Students gathered on campus, where the flags were flown at half-staff, on Friday evening to remember Ms. Rebello.

The father of the woman who was allowed to leave the house asked that her name not be used and said his daughter was badly shaken.

At the home of the twins’ parents in Tarrytown, near where the sisters grew up in Westchester County, a woman who said she was the godmother arrived Friday evening with another woman who was sobbing. “We can’t right now,” the godmother said when asked to comment. “There’s just no words.”

“They’re great kids,” she said. “It’s just too tragic to talk.”

Friends of the sisters flooded social media Web sites with condolences.

Carol Conklin-Spillane, the principal of Sleepy Hollow High School, which the sisters attended, said that Andrea and Jessica not only looked identical, but were also both quick with a smile, kind and loving. They were also best friends.

“I cannot fathom how her sister is going to put one foot in front of the other,” Ms. Conklin-Spillane said.

“It’s hard as a mother, as a teacher, as somebody who loves the children in this community that we serve,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Andrea Rebello kept a blog where she wrote about her love of food and shared holiday recipes. In a short autobiographical note, she wrote, “I’m 100% Portuguese and have an identical twin sister so I guess that makes me kind of unique?”