This article will illustrate how teachers and a teacher educator design innovative programs for world language instruction using principles from sociocultural theory, postcolonial theory, and critical theory. During the course of their planning and reflections, they address issues of diversity in the U.S. and in the world as a significant factor in instructional practice. Their dialogue demonstrates that diversity cannot be framed by outmoded thinking that equates the term with realities faced by and an issue confined to “minorities.” Rather, in this chapter, our conversation introduces specific examples of how teachers can design curricula that prepare all learners to move beyond their habitual worldviews and to consider instead the multiple perspec- tives of users of world languages in an ever-changing environment. Concretely, this approach to diversity calls for a reframing of issues to include 1) an identity-building shift from the “tourist” to the responsible democratic citizen; 2) a shift from the frame of an individual to that of a community; and 3) a shift away from an orientation that sees diversity as problematic and towards the expectation that one will benefit from critical cross-cultural encounters with difference (“the other”). Accompanying these shifts in thinking are language instructional practices that build recognition of diversity locally and internationally. Our language programs thus use classroom diver- sity to understand wider circles of diversity and foment understanding of difference such that language learning engages us more critically in understanding ourselves in relation to others.