All aspects of gifted programming must emanate from students’ unique educational needs. Gifted and talented learners are different from their same-age peers because of advanced cognitive, psychosocial, and physiological development. These developmental differences, as well as a host of outside influences, are expressed through a range of student behaviors and other indicators. How do teachers recognize the behaviors? How do they know what is necessary and appropriate in order to differentiate curriculum, instruction, and assessment? This session discusses characteristics, traits, related needs, and the impact of the environment on the expression of giftedness.