Based on a suggestion by Verdooren (2021), this research project seeks to challenge the centrality of culture in our efforts to bring together people of different backgrounds in peaceful and productive ways. The research project first explores the origins of Intercultural Communication (as a field of study) in the work of Hall (1959) and the Foreign Service Institute in the late 1940s to uncover the reasons behind the focus on culture that has become so central to our field. Next, it examines the limitations the concept of culture brings to our endeavours. These include: the lack of definitional clarity; the propensity to overlook differences between people that are not seem as cultural; the stereotyping that is innate in any analysis of group tendencies; the danger of abstracting personal encounters to a societal/national level; and the use of culture as an explanatory variable when observing human behaviour rather than as an invitation to explore further. Finally, the presenter will draw on research in human cognition (Hohwy, 2013) and neuroscience (Clark, 2013) to propose that we broaden the focus of our field from “culture” to difference,” specifically to the ways in which human brains and human societies deal with difference, whether that difference fits a definition of culture or not. He will suggest that, by focusing on difference, we can overcome many of the limitations of our culture-centered model in reaching our goal of improving relations between people from different backgrounds.