Since 1970, more than 250,000 internationally adopted children have added a welcome variety to our already diverse early childhood caseloads and classrooms. However, their presence also creates a distinctive clinical dilemma for the early childhood professionals who care for them. This paper presents a description of the early environmental influences on language development as well as an account of the typical language learning process of the internationally adopted child. Finally, practical implications are addressed as they relate to the work of the early childhood professional.