This discussion paper offers a critical examination of the ways in which international students are supported by the variety of systems commonly in place at universities in the U.K. and U.S.A.--two countries that attract large numbers of students from overseas. While acknowledging the difficultly of defining the term "support", the article describes, compares and critiques the approaches deployed in both nations. Though certain broad, structural similarities are identified, the authors discuss how a shared neoliberal instrumentality guiding student support leads to differently inflected institutional responses in both countries. Consideration is also given to the extent to which differences in "national" values and beliefs about higher education might be implicated in these diverse approaches and, finally, to what lessons might be learned from these comparisons.