International instructors in U.S. institutions of higher education boost the academic quality of education available to U.S. undergraduate students. Many university students, however, regard nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants (NNESTAs) as problematic. Innovative programs for enhancing undergraduates' capacity to understand NNESTAs' speech are warranted. In this report, we describe a simple, structured approach that systematically applies principles of the contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) to interaction between NNESTAs and U.S. undergraduates. U.S. undergraduates solved mystery puzzles with NNESTAs in a verbally rich situation. Following these encounters, the undergraduates judged NNESTAs to be more comprehensible and instructionally competent. Future applications of this intervention might incorporate similar contact exercises in institutionally sanctioned programs.