Aimed at professionals and community members interested in program development, this paper presents an overview of issues in Native American education and counseling. A section on culture discusses similarities among Native world views and social behavior that are at odds with White values and behaviors. A section on Native American education points out the bias of schools that ignore Native attitudes and learning styles, and makes suggestions for culturally relevant teaching methods, evaluation methods, and classroom techniques. A section on special education discusses three methods of teaching content reading that have been successful among Native Americans with reading difficulties, problems related to differences among government agencies in definitions of learning disabilities, and the mistaken identification among Indian children of learning disabilities that are actually learning style differences. Other sections focus on vocational education and counseling; the importance for job success of task-related social behaviors, communications skills, and decision-making skills; dropouts; substance abuse among Native American youth, dysfunctional behaviors, and dysfunctional families; and individual, group, and family counseling for Native American substance abusers. This paper contains 63 references. (SV)