Efforts to expand the generic language proficiency guidelines of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) to the less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) began when developers realized that the ACTFL guidelines were too Eurocentric; the guidelines included grammatical categories specific to Western European languages and dealt specifically with Roman-alphabet writing systems. Developers soon realized that, to apply the generic guidelines to the construction of proficiency descriptions for a particular LCTL, the target language itself must be assessed, and that such factors as cultural context, appropriate content, sociolinguistic peculiarities, and measurements of accuracy must be considered for each language. The guidelines developed for Arabic and Indonesian illustrate the necessary considerations. Training language-specific testers provided another area of difficulty in assessing proficiency levels for the LCTLs. Possible solutions to this problem include the following: (1) training through English or through another language with which the tester is familiar; (2) training in a language structurally similar to the target language; (3) pairing the tester with a native speaker of the target language; and (4) utilizing semi-direct tests. Issues in the area of interrater reliability have been called to attention, and the recent legislation and regulations for proficiency testing and competency-based language programs has created several policy questions that funding agencies and post-secondary institutions must face. (DJD)