Mental health clinical services research has emphasized the urgency of developing new psychometric instruments for non-biased psychological assessment of minority and non-minority children of diverse cultural groups in the United States. Background multicultural standardization and validation information is presented for Tell-Me-A-Story (TEMAS)--a new thematic apperception test to assess personality functioning in Hispanic, Black, and White children. The test consists of 23 chromatic pictures depicting Hispanic and Black characters (Minority Version) and White characters (Non-Minority Version) interacting in urban settings. TEMAS protocols are scored for the adaptiveness of personality functioning based on each examinee's stories told in response to the pictures. The instrument's reliability was established in a study of 73 Puerto Rican students in kindergarten through grade 6 in New York City. The utility of TEMAS in predicting psychotherapeutic treatment outcomes was investigated with 210 school children in kindergarten through grade 3 in New York City. Results from a study with 296 psychiatric outpatients and public school students support the validity of TEMAS for discriminating between clinical and school groups of minority children. The TEMAS was standardized on a sample of 642 white and minority children (281 males and 361 females), with ages ranging from 5 to 13 years. A 40-item list of references is included. (Author/SLD)