Written for professionals working with food assistance and other programs with a nutrition component, this guide is intended to aid in understanding the cultural characteristics and basic health and diet-related problems of Native Americans and to promote more effective nutrition counseling and community nutrition education. The background section summarizes nutritional status, nutrition-related illnesses, and traditional and contemporary dietary practices of Native Americans. A bibliography of 55 references on nutritional status and nutrition-related illnesses completes this section. The chapter on counseling strategies, developed especially for nutrition educators inexperienced in working with Native Americans, contrasts Native American and non-native cultural values and discusses Native American views on topics such as the extended family, community role, noninterference, and preventive health care. Twenty references on counseling skills and nutrition education are included in this section. A directory of 37 government and private sector resources for nutrition educators including brief descriptions of services, is provided in the third section. Over 150 state health agencies and offices of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services are listed in directory form in the appendices. (JHZ)