Understanding how members of different cultures perceive and process listening is fundamental to the enhancement of cross-cultural communication. This exploratory study is the first to compare Iranian students with U.S. students regarding their perceptions of their own listening competence using Brownell's HURIER Listening Profile. The study's hypothesis that the two groups perceive their listening competence differently was partially supported. Across the six processes of the HURIER Listening Profile, the U.S. students perceived themselves as slightly better listeners in the areas of hearing, remembering and responding as compared with their Iranian counterparts, although both groups perceived themselves as "good listener" in four areas of hearing, remembering, interpreting, and responding, and as "adequate listener" in two areas of understanding and evaluating. (Contains 1 table.)