This chapter explores elite multilingualism as an area of research in linguistic ethnography. It develops a definition of the concepts of elites and eliteness as grounded in discourses and social practices, which provides a rationale for a focus on the use of semiotic and communicative resources to construct eliteness, analysing the role of these practices in maintaining unequal relations of power. Following on from this, elite multilingualism is defined in relation to how access to particular linguistic resources brings capital and prestige to particular social groups and individual. The chapter provides a historical overview of scholarly work on elites and on elite multilingualism. It identifies critical issues that support the reproduction of elite multilingualism, including commodification of language, ideologies, choice and hierarchies, and describes current studies which provide understandings of language use in elite sites and of elite multilingualism. Two case studies are drawn on to illustrate these issues: a study of multilingual language trainers in Austria, and research on bilingual education in Wales. The social implications of elite multilingualism are discussed, particularly in relation to unequal access to resources, and future directions for the field are considered.