This symposium will address a critical global problem -- the rates of civic scientific literacy in developed and developing countries. The number of issues that require citizens to have a functional level of scientific understanding to make sense of available information and to think about choices is growing rapidly. Climate change, stem cell research, and infectious diseases are three examples, and the full list extends to medicine, agriculture, communication, and numerous other fields. Over the last 25 years, a solid empirical literature has emerged in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and there are promising new efforts in India, China, Brazil, and other developing countries. This symposium will review the existing work in this area and focus discussion on ways to build measures that will serve the educational and policy needs of all societies -- developed and developing. It is a bridge that needs to be built.