Australia is a country that unique educational challenges, as it attempts to promote high levels of academic achievement within a just and democratic education system. In this paper, the unusual demographic characteristics of Australia society will be briefly reviewed, followed by a discussion of the difficulties inherent in providing equal educational opportunities for all students in such a society. Taking contemporary thinking on multicultural education as a philosophical foundation, an attempt is made to identify ways in which certain students are likely to be disadvantaged in the mainstream school system. After this, an outline of current Australian policy and practice in relation to students who are likely to be disadvantaged by their culture background is presented. It is concluded that while much has been achieved, a lot of work has still to be done before equality of educational opportunity is genuinely achieved for all students.