Instruction and assessment need to be understood and thought about within the cultural context in which they occur. Educators and educational researchers may make assumptions that apply in their home culture but not elsewhere. And even different subcultures within an overall mainstream culture may have different views on instruction and assessment, and what constitutes intelligent performance in each. In this article, I consider the relevance of culture to instruction and assessment. I describe studies that show the importance of understanding instruction and assessment in their cultural contexts, and conclude that education and its goals must be understood in such contexts.