<p dir="ltr">International friendship (i.e., friendship between host-national and international students) is an important area of study for counseling psychologists. Host-national students’ engagement with international friendship is associated with cross-cultural learning, cognitive benefits, and a more nuanced understanding of race and stereotyping. Even with these benefits, international friendships appear to be infrequent. In this dissertation, I present two distinct chapters to investigate international friendship more deeply. In Chapter 1, I summarized benefits of and barriers to international friendship. Additionally, I described how relevant friendship theories have guided the current international friendship literature. I concluded Chapter 1 by identifying limitations to current research, making recommendations for future research, and offering implications for counseling psychologists. In Chapter 2, I performed a latent profile analysis to identify three profiles of host-national students based on their attitudes, behaviors, and demographic factors. I used these profiles to analyze how international friendship engagement varies by their profile group membership. I then contextualized these profiles in research and theory and identified limitations to the current study.</p>