Since its inception in the early 1990s, geographic information science and its related technology, geographic information systems (GIS), have diffused slowly into select groups of K-12 classrooms worldwide. The technology has not been adopted at a rate commensurate with expectations. The purpose of this article is to explore GIS implementation by comparing the variable status of GIS education in pre-collegiate education in the United States and Europe and factors that appear to play a role in diffusion. The authors use a model of internal and external factors that influence adoption of education innovation as a heuristic to compare and draw conclusions. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)