This study investigates the academic English writing competence and needs assessment of ESL postgraduates through student survey and faculty interview at two Chinese and American universities.The results show that Chinese and American ESL postgraduates have similar concerns and priorities:limited proficiency in academic vocabulary,grammar,literature reading,genre and writing rhetoric and insufficient knowledge of academic writing conventions.There also exist some salient differences between the two groups of students.Chinese postgraduates are much poorer at rhetorical knowledge and have much less support from their teacher's face-to-face guidance.The study concludes with some suggestions for ESL postgraduate academic English writing teaching in higher education institutions.