A major component of the Illinois State University (ISU) teacher education program is early field experience in a multicultural setting. The aim of this component is to enable prospective teachers to be aware of the needs of the changing school population and its cultural diversity. The ISU community-based field experience program is coordinated with on-campus course work that is designed to prepare the students for urban experience. Students are carefully screened before entering the program. Orientation for the program is conducted by the college faculty in cooperation with local community personnel, and efforts are made to allow students to develop cohesiveness as a group in cooperative and supportive patterns. Field assignments are community-based and emphasize contact with multicultural urban populations in school and nonschool settings. The bulk of the field experiences take place in nonschool settings. Students work with professional staff in such programs as drug and mental health facilities and youth centers. This enables the prospective teachers to gain insight into the background and life realities of the urban students they will teach. In evaluating A description of a typical schedule of students in the program shows that they work in varied locations from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. In order to evaluate the program, students were given the Cultural Attitude Inventory test and the Personality Orientation Inventory test both before and after the field experience. In both tests, the mean scores of the students changed favorably from one testing period to the next, indicating development of a more positive attitude toward youth of different cultures. (JD)