The article analyses ethnographic data from the study of the home literacy practices of two immigrant families, a Lebanese-Muslim and a Chinese family. It explores the experiences of the immigrant families as they blend the pedagogical practices and behaviours of their own cultures with those of the mainstream culture to ensure academic success in dominant literacies. Data reveal that for the families in this study, the acquisition of mainstream literacies was dependent on adult members selectively acquiring and transmitting what Bourdieu calls 'the instruments of appropriation' needed to access mainstream literacies. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)