Italy has become a destination for immigration, and this has had an impact on the linguistic and cultural diversity of school populations. In response to this changing profile, Italy has developed a series of language-in-education policies for meeting the needs of immigrant children. This paper traces the development of these policies and examines the ways in which the linguistic and cultural education of immigrants has been conceptualized. It traces a movement from policies relating to language and integration to intercultural education with a focus on developing the intercultural abilities of the entire population. At the same time, Italy's language-in-education policies, while responding to the changed social profile resulting from immigration, have marginalized some aspects of immigrant children's educational needs.