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This overview to The Modern Language Journal's Focus Issue on Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) takes a fresh look at issues examined in a 1991 article by Grosse and Voght. Reflecting on change drivers and growth in LSP, the authors comment on current challenges to the field and future research needs. Their remarks are based on new insights from the Focus Issue authors, a review of literature, and their own observations. From 1991 to 2011, the field of LSP in the United States evolved from a minor role in the foreign language (FL) curriculum, primarily in business languages, to one with a wider base in FLs and interdisciplinary studies. Amid calls for structural changes in language departments from the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the push to internationalize professional school curricula for accreditation, LSP practitioners face exciting new opportunities for service and research. The continuing evolution of LSP doubtless will bring further integration of language, culture, and content to the academic and professional worlds.

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Our present and future economic security depends on our ability as a nation to communicate effectively with potential business partners, customers, and competitors around the world. Our success in the global marketplace is directly related to our ability to understand, appreciate, value, and within foreign cultures, differing sets of social customs, diverse economic contexts, and varied political systems. The colleges and universities that prosper in the future are those that will, among other things, focus foreign language curricula on the needs of students specializing in business and other professions, while modifying their business and professional courses and programs to include foreign languages, international perspectives, and cross‐cultural content. This article describes the fundamental changes in U.S. society and the world that are dictating modifications in the rules and assumptions for U.S. higher education, in general, and for instruction in foreign languages, foreign cultures, and professional preparation, in particular.