Bilingual education, the objective of which is to render bilingual a group of monolingual or quasi-monolingual speakers, is distinguished from the "education of bilinguals," whose goal it is to teach the content of school subjects through the medium of two rather than one language. The present paper establishes this distinction and justifies the differential status of the two types of bilingual instruction on the basis of sociolinguistic, socio-cultural and psychological considerations. To establish the independent status of the "education of bilinguals," an innovative design for a bicultural and bilingual program is proposed that will lend itself to implementation in any area of the U.S. where stable bilingualism is operative, particularly South Texas. A set of token materials appropriate for such a program are provided, materials that will make ample use of "code-shifting" techniques that are sociolinguistically and psychologically significant and would better help the students relate to the classroom, since such strategies are part of their everyday verbal behavior. It is concluded that bilinguals will perform better if they are allowed to carry their usual bilingual strategies in to the classroom and are allowed to retain as well as distribute their two languages in a functionally significant way. (Author/CLK)