Prevention of decline in cognitive and physical functioning in the elderly has become an important focus in geriatric medicine. Hispanics are among the fastest-growing group of elderly in the United States, yet few data are available on functional impairments in this group. We examined the association between ethnicity (non-Hispanic whites [NHW], English-speaking Hispanics [EH], and Spanish-speaking Hispanics [SH]) and cognitive status, self-assessed functional status, and physical performance in a community-dwelling sample of 589 people aged > or = 60 years. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between ethnicity and these measures of functional status and to evaluate the influence of comorbid stroke, diabetes, and hypertension on this association. We found that EH and SH had significantly lower scores on the MiniMental State Exam than NHW, but that this difference was almost entirely due to educational level. When SH whose educational attainment was grade 8 or higher were compared to NHWs, there were no differences in cognitive functioning. Those with diabetes and stroke had poorer cognitive functioning. Among those with stroke, EH and SH women had more self-assessed functional limitations (IADLs and ADLs) than NHW. Male SH and EH with diabetes also had more self-assessed functional limitations than NHW. SH with two or three of these conditions had more IADL limitations. Our results suggest that elderly community-dwelling Hispanics experience greater levels of disability and that this is due, in part, to lower socioeconomic status and higher prevalence of disabling conditions.