A sense of belonging is still a challenge for minority groups, including international students who pursue their degrees at Predominantly White Institutions. Being an online student, potentially impede a sense of belonging even more as prior research mentioned that online classes, specifically asynchronous are dominated by lack of interaction. Hypothetically, if students struggled to feel to belong in the online classes, this will lead to a minimal sense of university belonging. The explanatory sequential mixed method design was aimed to fill this gap. A group of 156 international students across Predominantly White Institutions was recruited using a combination of convenience and snowball sampling. A subgroup of 14 students were invited to the interview based on their sense of classroom community scores which were divided into High and Low groups. Results showed teaching presence predicted sense of online classroom community -- learning and connectedness. In terms of university belonging this present study used three indicators -- university support and acceptance, university affiliation, and faculty and staff relations. Learning predicted university support and acceptance and partially mediated the relationship between teaching presence and university belonging. Slightly different, connectedness predicted university affiliation but did not mediate association between teaching presence and university belonging. Even though qualitative findings supported quantitative results, surprisingly there is no difference in terms of sense of online classroom community between two groups. This study also noted international students prioritized learning needs more than social interaction. Incorporating cultural perspective in class discussion is an effort to engage with course material and construct their thinking not to serve social needs. Therefore, instructors are encouraged to have cultural sensitivity while facilitating discourse building community of scholars in online classrooms. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]