A number of reports in the US have highlighted the country's need for improved second language skills for both national security and economic competitiveness. The Language Flagship program, launched in 2002, aims to raise expectations regarding language proficiency levels at the post-secondary level and to address structural gaps in the curricula of many L2 programs. This federally funded program provides opportunities for US undergraduate students in any specialization to reach a professional level of competence in a targeted second language by graduation. This volume highlights innovative practices that enable students to achieve this goal--even those with no exposure to the second language prior to university. This book explores the rationale and history of the federal program and showcases models and strategies of existing Flagship programs. This book contains the following chapters: (1) The Language Flagship: Creating Expectations and Opportunities for Professional-Level Language Learning in Undergraduate Education (Michael Nugent and Robert Slater); (2) Laying the Groundwork: Programmatic Models in US Language Flagship Programs (Dianna Murphy, Karen Evans-Romaine, Valerie Anishchenkova, and Zhuo Jing-Schmidt); (3) Adding Breadth to the Undergraduate Curriculum: Flagship Approaches to Interdisciplinary Language Learning (Sandra Freels, Olesya Kisselev, and Anna Alsufieva); (4) The Road through Superior: Building Learner Independence (Peter John Glanville); (5) Maximizing Oral Proficiency Development via Telecollaborative Partnerships in the Portuguese Flagship Program (Victoria Hasko, Robert Moser, Fernanda Guida, Mary Elizabeth Hayes, and Viviane Klen Alves); (6) Creating Collaborative Communities through Online Cafés (Sharon Bain and Madeline K. Spring); (7) Heritage Language Learners in Flagship Programs: Motivation, Language Proficiency and Intercultural Communicative Competence (Olga Kagan and Cynthia Martin); (8) Assessing Language Proficiency and Intercultural Development in the Overseas Immersion Context (Dan E. Davidson, Nadra Garas, and Maria D. Lekic); (9) Overseas Internships in Advanced to Professional-Level Language Acquisition (Samuel Eisen); (10) Beyond Proficiency Gains: Assessing the Academic, Cultural and Professional Impact of the Flagship Experience on Alumni (Mahmoud Al-Batal and Christian Glakas); and (11) Raise the Flag(ship)! Creating Hybrid Language Programs on the Flagship Model (Thomas J. Garza). The Introduction and Conclusion were written by the editors.