As the world of work becomes increasingly global, employees of governments, companies and non-commercial organizations find themselves obliged to live abroad for years at a time, uprooting their families from jobs, schools and support networks in the process. This study is a detailed exploration of how families cope both individually and as structures with the stresses of moving to a new culture - how children cope with the change of schools, friends, culture and language, how partners cope with the loss of status that comes from independent employment, with the strains of running a household in an unfamiliar culture and with the isolation of losing day to day contact with established friends and family. Through interviews conducted over a period of two years, Mary Haour-Knipe shows the processes of change and adjustment at work. Her findings should be of interest to students of wider issues of migration and to those who study the family under pressure.