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Cross‐cultural studies of psychiatric phenomena allow testing of assumptions of biological consistency and improved understanding of how disorders are culturally formulated. We used a comparative approach to test for population variation in degrees of harmful academic and social dysfunction associated with children's display of behaviors considered symptomatic of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Teacher ratings on psychometric scales described behavior and functioning in population‐representative samples of Colombian and United States schoolchildren. Mean levels of the behaviors were similar across populations, including a constant gender difference. A multiple regression model showed remarkably consistent relationships of hyperactivity and inattention to harmful dysfunction across populations and genders. Increasing inattention was associated with increasing harmful dysfunction …