Abstarct: As the world moves toward globalization, knowledge of culture gains momentum; since it is a prerequisite for establishing international communications and contacts. To this end, different scholars are stressing that ELT textbooks need to incorporate sufficient cultural materials to develop language learners’ intercultural communicative competence and to help them become globalized citizens of the world. The literature review indicated the lack of multidimensional assessment of multicultural/intercultural content in ELT textbooks. Thus, to address this gap, this study aimed to examine and to compare a locally-developed and international series of ELT textbooks (i.e., Vision and Top Notch) from different cultural and intercultural perspectives to have an in-depth look at their differences in the surface and the deep culture representation, as well as the representation of elements associated with the development of ICC. Therefore, the study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the surface and the deep culture representation in the two series were examined and compared using Gomez Rodriguez’s (2015) frxamework and classifications. In the second phase, the representation of ICC elements in the two series was investigated and compared using Byram’s (1997) frxamework and definitions. Accordingly, different sections in each textbook in the two series were examined, and the two series as a whole were compared against each other from different cultural perspectives. The findings revealed that the Vision series covered a limited number of categories, and subcategories of cultural elements associated with both the local and the international community, and presented most of its cultural elements at the surface level. Additionally, the Vision series contained very few deep cultural elements, all of which were confined to the Iranian or Islamic cultures, and presented the ICC elements in some reading passages. In contrast, the Top Notch series incorporated numerous multicultural elements while lacking to represent the Iranian culture(s) and still presented most of its cultural elements at the surface level. Additionally, compared to the Vision series, the Top Notch series contained more cultural elements at the deep level without making a direct reference to the Iranian culture. Also, this series took advantage of different sections to present ICC. Consequently, the Vision series-despite having its advantages-was concluded to be limiting the development of Iranian language learners’ ICC. Thus, we found that this series needs to pay more attention to the representation of multicultural/intercultural elements to make Iranian language learners needless of the international series. Moreover, the Top Notch series-despite being a better choice for multicultural education and intercultural communication-lacked the incorporation of the Iranian culture(s) to suit the needs of the Iranian language learners. Finally, the pedagogical implications and applications of the study were discussed in the context of language teaching and learning.