This article explores teachers' experiences of establishing and maintaining Indonesian gamelan music programs in Australian schools focusing on their views of the strengths and challenges of those programs. By analysing these experiences, I argue that we can discover important indicators of the factors which affect the long-term vitality and sustainability of such programs. Knowing and understanding these factors helps teachers and school management who may want to establish or maintain a gamelan program in their school. Gamelan programs in schools are valuable as they can be an important step in developing intercultural understanding in students and promoting cultural diversity in the school curriculum. I start with an overview of cultural diversity in music education and my own connection with the topic. I then discuss the qualitative methods used for my research. I interviewed 23 teachers across 16 Australian schools over a period of 10 months in 2017-2018. This is followed by a discussion of the participating teachers' experiences of teaching gamelan in their schools and what, in their view, are the strengths and challenges of those culturally diverse music programs. I then summarise the findings of my research, offer some possible typical characteristics of a vital and sustainable gamelan program in a school and give suggestions for steps to take to ensure a successful and long-standing program. It is hoped these findings help teachers and school management to both establish, and maintain, effective gamelan programs in their schools.