Empathy is regarded as intrinsic to interpretive social science, and also to the practice of participant-observation on which anthropology is based. But it is too easily assumed in cross-cultural settings where researcher and host lack common experience and deep interpersonal history. The debate about the hazards of empathy links to older relativist-universalist debates; but the Gordian-knot-cutting of Rosaldo and Wikan, who opt for experiential resonance as a key to cross-cultural connexion, is shown to be illusory. Empathy is essential for emotional understanding, but it is not a trick of intuition or commonality; nor, except in the simplest generic situations, is it accountable to mirror neurons. The ability to enter another’s predicament and tune into their emotions is an achievement of narrative understanding, or what we might call narrative empathy. I consider some recent ethnographic examples from around the world that exemplify this approach.