This document critiques various discourses about mentoring within the context of adult learning environments in general and adult literacy programs in particular. Mentoring is defined as an enabling or developmental relationship that occurs in partnerships wherein experienced individuals kindle knowledge and offer support to protgs in joint ventures to experiment and learn within the context of encouragement and reinforcement. The booklet's first two sections examine the traditional discourses of formal, informal, and "marginal" mentoring and alternative discourses of dialogic, monologic, and dialogic/monologic mentoring that are said to have more in common with conceptualizations of literacy as social practice. Next, key principles of the discourse on mentoring are illustrated through the case study of a "self-help" city. In the case study, human service providers working in a major Australian capital city and serving disadvantaged, low-skilled clients function as literacy "brokers." The case study is followed by a discussion that and offers insights into perceptions of literacy and mentoring by focusing on the following issues: competing and conflicting discourses; approaches to mentoring literacy practice; "social" literacy as mentoring practice; responding to local literacy need by building bridges through "social" literacy; "public" and "private" literacy in local practice; meeting need through mentoring; and policies promoting mentoring. The bibliography lists 33 references. (MN)