In this article, I examine how students, teachers and staff understood and addressed cultural difference at an urban, public high school in the United States. My research reveals that the school's multicultural practices contradictorily sustained and exacerbated problems and made teachers resistant to multicultural education. Simultaneously, my research elucidates the ways in which pedagogy that focuses on tensions and conflicts that arise from cultural differences offer important possibilities for multicultural education. (Contains 8 notes.)