The primary purpose of this study was to determine if a model for identifying gifted and talented students could be developed which would provide equal access to gifted programs for children of all ethnic and economic backgrounds. The culturally and ethnically diverse San Diego City School District provided a pool of over 35,000 children referred for giftedness whose records were coded and analyzed through this research. Based on these findings, a model designed to increase the proportion of ethnically and economically diverse students referred for assessment and identified as gifted was implemented and evaluated, with the Raven Progressive Matrices used as the criterion measure of intellectual ability. Component research papers by Dennis P. Saccuzzo, Nancy E. Johnson and Tracey L. Guertin cover the following topics: the use of the Raven Matrices in an ethnically diverse gifted population; use of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) with disadvantaged gifted children; evaluation of risk factors in selecting children for gifted programs; information processing in gifted versus nongifted African-American, Latino, Filipino, and White children; ethnic and gender differences in locus of control in at risk gifted and nongifted children; and understanding gifted underachievers in an ethnically diverse population. Appendices include a teacher nomination form, a student/parent information form, and an independent evaluation review, in which author Margie Kitano finds the new model to have significantly impacted school system practice and increased the number and proportion of underrepresented students referred and identified although failing to fully meet the initial criterion for equal access. (Contains 222 references.) (Author/PB)