This paper critiques deficit models of education, including popular educational movements such as grit and growth mind-set, and considers how they inform and underlie information literacy efforts, often without librarians' awareness. After a discussion of the problems that deficit thinking poses for students and educators, the author offers two alternative approaches, critical information literacy and culturally sustaining pedagogy, with examples of how they can guide library instruction. This paper provides readers with an understanding of deficit models and what they look like in library instruction, and describes effective counterapproaches and specific examples to put alternative principles into practice.