A study used focus groups to determine what teachers from a variety of settings think should be the multicultural content of literacy courses for preservice teachers. The three focus groups consisted of a total of 22 preschool through high-school teachers, all of whom taught, or had taught, in culturally and/or linguistically diverse settings. The groups were asked to respond to two questions: What is the nature of multicultural literacy? and What implications does this have for the teaching of preservice literacy classes? Field notes were taken and the sessions were tape recorded. General categories of the content of the discussion were developed for each group, and then comparisons were made across groups. Multicultural literacy for most of these teachers could be broken down into two ideas--what counted as multicultural, and how ethnic and linguistic diversity affected learning. Some teachers had wider definitions than others, but for almost all of them the result of their definitions was a sensitivity to the needs of individual children, and the importance of differentiated instruction. These concerns were also the major implications for preservice literacy classes. Unlike the definitions of experts, the groups did not talk about issues of educating for democracy or equity and social justice. (Contains 21 references.) (RS)