A study was conducted to compare the communication apprehension levels of Puerto Rican college students with those of United States college students. The Puerto Rican students were considered bilingual, having received instruction in English as a second language for most of their school years. In the first phase of the study, 341 students who reported Spanish as their native language completed a measure of communication apprehension. A year later, 661 students with Spanish as their native language completed the same apprehension instrument. Subjects also were asked to rate their perceived competence in English. These scores were compared to mean scores on the communication apprehension report from nearly 20,000 American students. The results indicated that the Puerto Rican students were much less apprehensive about communicating in their native language than they were about communicating in English. The findings also indicated that apprehension in a first language is a much better predictor of apprehension in a second language than is self-perceived competence in that second language. The results suggest that the problem of communication apprehension must be addressed by second language instructors if students are to be taught to be truly bilingual. (HTH)