Generic and causal competencies for effective elementary bilingual teachers have been defined through this study. Data have been collected with an operant interviewing method termed the Behavioral Event Analysis (BEA). The BEA was developed at Harvard for the purpose of identifying competencies for effective job performance. In this study, 20 bilingual teachers were interviewed to differentiate those competencies demonstrated by "superior" bilingual teachers, compared to those of other bilingual teachers. Detailed descriptions of successful episodes and less successful episodes were elicited from the subjects. Behavioral episodes encompass the teachers' perceptions, thoughts, acts, feelings, and conclusions. A content analysis of interview transcriptions has yielded a set of competency clusters, which along with their accompanying sub-categories, reveal the following characteristics for effective bilingual teachers: sociocultural knowledge, positive regard, non-authoritarianism, pedogogic flexibility, self-confidence, and communication skills. Given further validation of these competencies, teacher-educators can more adequately select potentially effective bilingual teachers, prepare effective bilingual teachers and develop relevant teacher preparation curricula. (Author)