Why are there relatively few American academicians applying for overseas grants? This was the underlying question at a meeting in April, 1988, where members of the CIES (Council for the International Exchange of Scholars of the Fulbright Commission), the U.S. Information Agency, and the Board of Foreign Scholars, the body which oversees all American government-sponsored activities, met. As background material, CIES presented data accumulated from surveying a sample of individuals who had requested information for Fulbright programs but had not applied. (Twenty-six of the sample were interested in the Middle East programs.) Information of a non-quantitative nature was drawn from the reports of recent Fulbrighters and was also included.