Australia's cultural and ethnic diversity raises many opportunities, but also challenges, for school music education. There is widespread recognition that the educational needs of all students need to be considered in the educational environment, however there is a paucity of empirical studies that consider the experiences of culturally diverse students in Australian music classrooms. This paper draws attention to the need for a deeper understanding of ways to support culturally diverse students, in the hope of identifying ways forward for music education to become more inclusive. This includes looking at the impacts of the population mismatch between diverse students and an ethnically homogeneous teaching population, the need for a musically broad and inclusive pre-service music teacher education, and the importance of a culturally inclusive music classroom.