Guided by the theories of cultural intelligence and social distance, the purpose of this quantitative non-experimental study was to determine whether first-year American-born college students' political party affiliations and cultural intelligence (CQ) relate to their self-reported social distances (SDs) from international students. One hundred and twenty-one first-year college students at a 4-year Midwestern university participated in this study. Regression analysis showed that political party affiliation (ß = 0.194, t = 3.074, p = 0.003), metacognitive CQ (ß = -0.239, t = -0.2.885, p = 0.005), motivational CQ (ß = -0.363, t = -4.225, p = 0.001), and behavioral CQ (ß = -0.215, t = -3.078, p = 0.003) of American-born college students were statistically significant predictors of their social distances from international peers. However, cognitive CQ (ß = 0.009, t = 0.112, p = 0.911) was not a statistically significant predictor of social distance between these two groups of students. Recommendations for future examination of CQ and SD in the context of American higher education were provided.