Summary: This study examined the relationship between culture/ethnicity, physiology, and empathic accuracy (defined as the ability to accurately infer the thoughts and feelings of others). In order to assess this relationship, 161 male and female college students of either African American ( n = 39), Chinese American (n = 43), European American (n = 38), or Mexican American (n = 41) ethnicity provided continuous ratings about the emotional valence and intensity of four target individuals. Target individuals were college women of African American, Chinese American, European American, or Mexican American ethnicity, engaged in videotaped conversations with their dating partner. Accuracy scores were determined by comparing participants' emotion ratings with identical self-ratings obtained previously from the targets. Physiological linkage---an index of the similarity between the physiological measures obtained from participants during the rating task and the same physiological measures obtained from the target during the original conversation---was computed for each participant. A significant interaction between rater ethnicity and target ethnicity was hypothesized, such that individuals were expected to demonstrate greater empathic accuracy and physiological linkage when rating someone of the same ethnic background than when rating someone of a different ethnic background. Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) revealed no significant interactions for empathic accuracy scores or for physiological linkage scores. A main effect of target ethnicity did emerge such that African American targets were rated more accurately than Chinese American, European American, or Mexican American targets. Implications are discussed and future directions are presented.