Many high school and university students return home from global programs and often report they have changed as a result of the experience. Global educators assume the act of participating in global education programs (such as high school study abroad) will open students' eyes to the complexities of another culture because students have been exposed and immersed in a foreign culture. Advocates of study abroad believe students will reach new levels of intercultural understanding far exceeding what they would be able to accomplish at home. At School Year Abroad (SYA), the authors wanted to test the assumption that, after a year of living and learning abroad, students will have increased their intercultural competence, which is defined as "knowledge, beliefs, and skills that allow one to understand the point of view of someone from a group culturally or linguistically different from one's own and act or communicate effectively and appropriately." The authors engaged in a two-phase study. In the fall of 2013, SYA students in Italy and Spain were administered the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. A control group was formed with 70 students from SYA member schools in the United States. Pretests occurred in September 2013. All groups were tested again at the end of the 2013-14 school year to determine student progress on a scale that ranged from ethnocentric to ethnorelative. This SYA year-long study tested the assumption that students who lived abroad for a year increased their intercultural competence. Results saw implementation of a mentoring program to increase cross-cultural curricular components to programs.