Aims: To investigate General Practitioners' views about how they recognised and managed psychological problems in their ethnic minority patients. To explore how this compared to their interactions with White British patients, and how their own ethnicity contributed to the process. To consider whether such factors might partly account for the disadvantaged position of ethnic minority patients in relation to mental health services. Method: Ten GPs in an ethnically diverse borough of London participated in semi-structured interviews to explore their views. The results were analysed using grounded theory methodology. Results: The challenge of understanding was the main concept spoken about by GPs in the present study. Understanding was both the goal (a complex model of the patient, their problem and the context, as perceived by the GP) and the process by which the GP attempted to achieve this. The grounded theory model developed described nine factors which influenced the challenge of understanding, and incorporated both barriers to understanding, and strategies used by GPs to overcome these.