Some experts suggest that people who are underrepresented in science often have difficulty expressing their ideas and participating in classrooms where traditional methods of instruction are used because they may feel uncomfortable with the limited roles in which traditional teaching methods require students to fit (Thomson et al, 1999; Delpit, 1995). To change this situation, teachers from Jefferson Middle School in Eugene, Oregon, and Mission College in Santa Clara, California, developed the Connections Across Cultures (CaC) project to ascertain the root of the problem. This article describes their project and how they uncovered teaching strategies to help students from underrepresented groups better understand science; and contribute fully to the science classroom.