This paper proposes that raising culturally-bound awareness and building culturally-appropriate responsibility constitute the essence of good inter-cultural coaching practice. It presents a coaching model that can facilitate this awareness and responsibility building and provides key concepts from the literature review and findings of a qualitative research project that have informed its construction. If cross-cultural coaching becomes an established form of coaching practice coaches must be cognizant of the dangers of transporting ‘Western’ models of coaching that are biased towards their own cultural lens. It is proposed that the differing values informing constructs such as ‘responsibility’ can change over the lifespan due to multiple and prolonged intercultural experiences and this may require that the coach work with ‘unlearning’ as a key intercultural competency.