Engaging in a mentoring partnership is considered a critical component for professional success. Interviews with successful professionals reveal that the guidance and support they received from mentors made an important difference in their careers. In many instances, there are not enough mentors for women or minorities during their formative years as graduate students and post-docs. For example, in 2006 the Women and Minorities in Ecology Committee reported that “the percentage of female tenure track faculty in the biological sciences was only 20.2% in FY 2002, whereas the percentage of female B.S. recipients in biology in 2001 was 59.7%, inevitably resulting in a dearth of female role models and mentors.” Perhaps more compelling, a woman Ph.D. student of color will probably never encounter a minority female faculty member in her field (www.esa.org/teaching_learning/pdfDocs/wamieReport2006.pdf). Most people find it easiest to mentor individuals with similar backgrounds to themselves. This workshop will introduce the techniques necessary for successfully mentoring undergraduates, graduate students, and young faculty who may have a different background than you do. Topics will include addressing differences in cultural background and diverse communication and learning styles stemming from those differences. We welcome graduate students, post-docs, new faculty, and more experienced mentors looking for new ideas.