Building on a group-level perspective on helping, we investigated the processes that lead domestic students to support international students in the context of voluntary peer-pairing programs. Results from a laboratory and a field study (total N = 198) confirmed that when international students came from culturally similar countries, empathy was a motivator of domestic students' helping intentions and behavior. Among culturally dissimilar dyads, however, helping was more contingent on the evaluation of international students' individual attributes. As moderated mediation analyses suggest, this effect was due to an increase in perceived relationship satisfaction, but, as expected, only among culturally dissimilar dyads.