This volume features a collection of papers from the first annual Intercultural Horizons conference held in May 2011 in Siena, Italy. The 2011 conference was entitled "Best Practices in Intercultural Competence Development" and featured speakers and participants from over 15 countries, including leaders in the field such as Janet Bennett of the Intercultural Communication Institute, Alvino Fantini of the School for International Training, Andrew Furco of the University of Minnesota, and Carol Ma of the Center for Service-Learning at Lingnan University, Hong Kong.The authors of these papers provide perspectives on intercultural communication and related issues from viewpoints as varied as the traditional researcher, the teacher in fields as diverse as second-language acquisition, music and the culinary arts, and the administrator of a specific program or at the senior level of a college or university. Together they form a representative sample of the themes discussed during the 2011 conference. The editors consider this first meeting to be the dawn, so to speak, of Intercultural Horizons, which aspires to become a respected venue for scholars and practitioners to exchange ideas, techniques and pedagogies on intercultural communication in years to come.