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Rural populations as small communities requiring sensitivity to rural culture have received increased attention with professional psychology's commitment to underexamined aspects of multiculturalism including geographic location. This article presents multidisciplinary approaches to service provision and training as natural models in rural and frontier communities and addresses the need for psychologists to move out of a monoculture model of training only in psychology to better serve rural consumers of mental health services. Overviews of rural health curriculum and training models as well as new health delivery options developing in nonmetropolitan areas such as prescriptive authority for psychology are provided. Suggestions are offered for state and territorial psychological associations regarding the needs of rural psychologists.

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The evolution of private practice in psychology can be seen as a series of five major steps forward. The first was the Taft-Hartley Act, enacted in 1947 to meet the unplanned-for and dramatic increase in demand for health care created by returning veterans of World War II. Taft-Hartley was based on prepaid private health insurance plans that were funded by the employers as a tax-deductible benefit to workers and managed by the workers' union. Regrettably, standard health insurance contracts specifically excluded coverage for nervous and mental disorders, alcoholism, and tuberculosis as incurable conditions. Barriers to insuring these health conditions were eventually overcome when insurance plans for federal employees began to offer coverage for mental conditions on a trial basis in the late 1950s.The second major step toward private practice in psychology was the 50+ years of battle it took to achieve licensure for psychologists in all 50 states, beginning with Dr. Karl Heiser's efforts that culminated in the passage of the first Psychology Certification Act in Connecticut of 1947.The third step occurred with the inclusion of psychologists in health insurance contracts. Thanks to Drs.