Results and descriptions of an exploratory study designed to develop an instrument to identify gifted Mexican-American children who would not ordinarily be identified with traditional techniques are presented. The Mexican American community was used to develop a cultural-community based definition of giftedness and to develop a measure for identifying Mexican American gifted children using behavior statements. These behaviors were then used to produce an adjectival rating scale and a behavior rating scale which were administered to the parents of the fifty four bilingual children in the sample. These children were administered five diverse tests of intellectual ability. Thirty four children across grade levels were selected into the gifted category on at least one of the five tests. Nine children were selected into the gifted category on more than one instrument. Of these thirty four gifted children, twenty two were among those for whom behavior and adjectival ratings had been collected. From the data it appeared that gifted children were seen as having a better sense of humor, greater intelligence, more self-confidence, as being more creative, more ambitious, more truthful, more independent, more curious, as having better judgment and being more expressive than non-gifted children. (RC)