This study investigated the effects of counseling style and client adherence to Asian cultural values on career-focused counseling process with Asian American college students. Fifty-two clients were classified as having either high or low adherence to Asian values and assigned to a counseling session with a European American female counselor, who employed either a directive or a nondirective style. Immediately following the session, clients completed measures of counselor credibility, counselor empathic understanding, client-counselor working alliance, session depth, and counselor cross-cultural counseling competence. Clients in the directive counseling condition rated the counselor as being more empathic and cross-culturally competent, and reported stronger client-counselor working alliance and greater session depth than did those clients in the nondirective condition.