More effective nutrition education to reach low-income and ethnic minority populations is needed. As part of a project to develop a tailored nutrition education intervention to meet the needs of low-income Hispanics and non-Hispanics, complementary, mixed methods of formative research were used to determine specific characteristics of the target population. The aim was to ensure that the full array of nutrition messages would be comprehensive enough to effectively tailor to the level of the individual. Barriers to healthy eating were delineated for three main dietary behaviors (number of items delineated in parentheses): lowering fat (11), increasing fruit (8) and increasing vegetables (6). Information was also collected regarding motivators for healthy eating (5), situational barriers to making healthy choices (4), other nutrition-related interests (8) and typical eating habits and food-related choices of the target audience.