This volume on strategies for meeting the challenges of cultural and linguistic diversity is designed to help faculty and administration in the professional education programs of the allied health professionals. The book's 11 chapters are divided among 3 main parts. The first section offers an introduction to the challenges before faculty and students. Chapter 1 provides demographic data and discusses cultural and communicative competency and the hidden curriculum. Chapter 2 discusses the question of addressing race, ethnicity and diversity in the academic setting. Chapter 3 describes how social cultural bias and prejudice develops, and provides suggestions on how faculty can overcome bias. The second part of the book introduces the reader to the major American cultural and ethnic student groups and provides background information concerning cultural differences in learning styles and views of education and health. In this part, chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 separately profile African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Native American students respectively. Chapter 8 addresses some of the common educational obstacles that foreign students encounter. The three chapters of the final section cover successful learning strategies and curriculum approaches. Chapter 9 outlines factors impacting the performance of minority students and provides language-learning and text strategies to facilitate student retention. Chapter 10 covers curriculum approaches for teaching cultural diversity in the professional programs of allied health, and chapter 11 discusses cross-cultural curriculum approaches to preparing students as effective health care professionals. References follow each chapter. (Author/JB)