Chicanos have been limited in their educational opportunities, as evidenced by their underrepresentation in occupations and professions requiring extended education. It is proposed that intelligence testing is one part of an educational ideology that ascribes the Chicano's unequal educational existence to the group's inability to function competently within the Anglo-American institutional environment. This paper discusses intelligence testing as an educational activity, its implicit assumptions, and the educational and social policy implications of intelligence testing for Chicanos. The hereditarian and environmentalist positions are described. The hereditarian position places greater responsibility on the person for his level of inequality, whereas, the environmentalist position employs the aggregation of personal inequality by social group to support structured levels of social inequality. The simple observation that intelligence test scores and performance in school and at work are closely associated has too often prompted intelligence test experts to conclude that the benefits of education and occupation are distributed on the basis of intelligence. On the contrary, it has been demonstrated that one's socioeconomic origin has a closer association with economic and occupational success than level of intelligence. (Author/RL)