This paper responds to Claire Kramsch's essay on the demise of the notion of the idealized native speaker as the model for second language learning and implications for second languages and cultures education. Focusing on the nonnative speaker of Russian and Russian language education in the United States, it asserts that both the quantity and quality of Russian presented to a learner may be entirely dependent on the learner's particular instrumental needs and desires to use the language. It discusses the issue of privilege among nonnative speakers of Russian and notes that the number and type of heritage speakers of Russian in the United States continues to grow, suggesting that issues of "nativeness" and nonnativeness" of speech will have an increasing impact on school curricula, textbooks, and programs. It concludes that for Russian and other less commonly taught languages in the United States, this movement toward accommodating the privileged nonnative speaker may turn out to be key to keeping such programs viable and productive. (SM)