This article examines difficulties encountered by international students in establishing strong and supportive academic advising relationships, with a special focus on Korean doctoral students in the USA. Interviews about barriers, experienced and perceived, to quality advising interactions were conducted with eight Korean international students at ABD (all but dissertation) stages at a large, public, Midwestern university. Findings suggest that students' perceived barriers to establishing successful advising relationships include the following: discrepancies in the ways Korean students and their American advisors envision advisement and communication; Korean students' passive attitude in initiating the advisor-advisee relationship; and advisors' unavailability to students. (Contains 1 figure.)