A survey instrument was developed to examine preservice teachers' understanding of classroom issues related to exceptional needs and cultural diversity. The instrument was administered to 832 preservice teachers at universities in Alabama, Michigan, Montana, New York, and Washington at 3 levels (beginning, middle, and end of program). Data are displayed in 18 tables showing responses by state and number of methods courses for exceptional needs, by state and methods courses for cultural diversity, and for all states by methods courses. Preservice teachers generally agreed that students with learning disabilities took more time to master skills, disagreed that it was easier to work with gifted students, agreed that special needs students should be evaluated differently than regular students, preferred to teach in a school setting similar to that in which they grew up, knew about ways to encourage parents from multicultural backgrounds to participate in the educational process, and felt comfortable with infusing multicultural material into their teaching. The paper concludes that preservice teachers indicate that they basically understand the issues. There was not much change in responses when looking at the beginning or end of programs; differences generally occurred in the middle portions of programs. The survey instrument is appended. (Contains 11 references.) (JDD)