This article presents an expanded model of acculturation among international migrants and their immediate descendants. Acculturation is proposed as a multidimensional process involving the confluence of heritage-cultural and receiving-cultural practices, values, and identifications. The article discusses the implications of this reconceptualization for the acculturation construct and its relationship to psychosocial and health outcomes. It emphasizes the need for an expanded operationalization of acculturation to address the "immigrant paradox," where international migrants with more exposure to the receiving culture report poorer mental and physical health outcomes. The article discusses the roles of ethnicity, cultural similarity, and discrimination in the acculturation process, offers an operational definition for the context of reception, and calls for studies on the role of context of reception in the acculturation process. The new perspective on acculturation presented in this article is intended to yield a fuller understanding of complex acculturation processes and their relationships to contextual and individual functioning. Acculturation has become a well-recognized and important area of study. Broadly, acculturation refers to changes that take place as a result of contact with culturally dissimilar people, groups, and social influences. Acculturation research generally focuses on immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who are assumed to be permanently settled in their new homeland. Rates of international migration have reached unprecedented levels in the United States and throughout the world. The United States is experiencing a massive wave of immigration larger than the great immigrant waves of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Western Europe, Canada, and Australia are also undergoing one of the largest immigrant flows in recent history. On a worldwide scale, migrants in the current (post-1960s) wave, which occurred when many countries opened their borders to a more diverse array of migrants, originate largely from Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East—regions where collectivism is emphasized over individualism. These migrants are settling primarily in North America, Western Europe, and Oceania—regions where individualism is emphasized more than collectivism. As a result, there are gaps in cultural values between many migrants and the societies that are receiving them. The large flow of migrants around the world has prompted increased scholarly interest in acculturation. At least three edited books on acculturation have been published since 2003. However, there remain a number of important challenges regarding operational definitions, contextual forces, and relationships to psychosocial and health outcomes that must be addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to raise some of these questions and issues and to propose an expanded, multidimensional model of acculturation and of the demographic and contextual forces that can influence the acculturation process. As part of this objective, we draw on and integrate various streams of literature on cultural adaptation, ethnicity, discrimination and acculturative stress, and context of reception. Further, because the bulk ofThis article presents an expanded model of acculturation among international migrants and their immediate descendants. Acculturation is proposed as a multidimensional process involving the confluence of heritage-cultural and receiving-cultural practices, values, and identifications. The article discusses the implications of this reconceptualization for the acculturation construct and its relationship to psychosocial and health outcomes. It emphasizes the need for an expanded operationalization of acculturation to address the "immigrant paradox," where international migrants with more exposure to the receiving culture report poorer mental and physical health outcomes. The article discusses the roles of ethnicity, cultural similarity, and discrimination in the acculturation process, offers an operational definition for the context of reception, and calls for studies on the role of context of reception in the acculturation process. The new perspective on acculturation presented in this article is intended to yield a fuller understanding of complex acculturation processes and their relationships to contextual and individual functioning. Acculturation has become a well-recognized and important area of study. Broadly, acculturation refers to changes that take place as a result of contact with culturally dissimilar people, groups, and social influences. Acculturation research generally focuses on immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who are assumed to be permanently settled in their new homeland. Rates of international migration have reached unprecedented levels in the United States and throughout the world. The United States is experiencing a massive wave of immigration larger than the great immigrant waves of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Western Europe, Canada, and Australia are also undergoing one of the largest immigrant flows in recent history. On a worldwide scale, migrants in the current (post-1960s) wave, which occurred when many countries opened their borders to a more diverse array of migrants, originate largely from Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East—regions where collectivism is emphasized over individualism. These migrants are settling primarily in North America, Western Europe, and Oceania—regions where individualism is emphasized more than collectivism. As a result, there are gaps in cultural values between many migrants and the societies that are receiving them. The large flow of migrants around the world has prompted increased scholarly interest in acculturation. At least three edited books on acculturation have been published since 2003. However, there remain a number of important challenges regarding operational definitions, contextual forces, and relationships to psychosocial and health outcomes that must be addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to raise some of these questions and issues and to propose an expanded, multidimensional model of acculturation and of the demographic and contextual forces that can influence the acculturation process. As part of this objective, we draw on and integrate various streams of literature on cultural adaptation, ethnicity, discrimination and acculturative stress, and context of reception. Further, because the bulk of