"Critical Visual Literacy: Multimodal Communication Across the Curriculum" makes the case for expanding the pedagogical space and communication possibilities in undergraduate communication-intensive and linked (learning community) courses by allowing students to create multimodal texts that deal with civic and cultural and/or discipline specific themes. We argue that, rather than diluting the opportunities for rhetorical education--now comprised of critical literacy, visual literacy, and critical technological literacy in today's increasingly fast-moving visual and electronic cultural environment--multimodal composing more meaningfully reflects the environment in which students receive and generate text today. Using a theory base that draws from the literatures of composition and CAC, visual literacy, new media theory and ecology, and the theory and pedagogy of critical technological literacy, we make a case for this expansion of communication opportunities in undergraduate communication-intensive classes. Specifically, we show how multimodal composing reinforces and further develops at least three essential characteristics of a critically literate person, thus helping to lift what W.J.T. Mitchell (2002) so aptly called the "ideological veil": (1) understanding that a text is not a transparent window on reality, but is constructed; (2) developing and demonstrating rhetorical awareness both as a composer of text and as a reader of text; and (3) developing agency as a communicator and as a reader, rather than opting for the passivity that our popular media environment makes so easy. Additional print and online sources are provided.