For children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds the ability to maintain flexible identities and integrate multiple facets of self is a crucial developmental task. We present a conceptual model for the development of expertise in navigating across cultures, delineating how community characteristics interact with family and individual practices to create the conditions under which children develop expertise in navigating multiple cultural worlds and identities. Core constructs and propositions about the nature of relations are derived from a multidisciplinary review of extant scholarship. To illustrate an application of the model, we compare two waves of immigration to the US from the Indian subcontinent and derive potential hypotheses about how differences in immigration history and circumstances of settlement in the host country are associated with the processes of negotiating identities. (Contains 1 table.)