Knowledge in all forms will be key to developing effective climate change adaptation. For Indigenous communities, the capacity to deploy their own knowledge systems and frameworks will be a founding stone in building culturally appropriate response.  Using examples from ethnic minorities in China and Indigenous peoples in Australia this comparative paper reports on a cross cultural research collaboration to explore how Indigenous knowledge is constituted, its role in building climate change adaptation and its values in enhancing community resilience. We demonstrate the importance not just of  traditional knowledge but historical and local knowledge of Indigenous peoples as they respond to the challenges climate change brings. We argue that we must guard against stereotyping what constitutes  Indigenous knowledge and that policy makers need to incorporate all kinds of knowledge to build adaptive capacity in adaptation. We conclude with some reflections on how the differences and similarities between Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in Australia and China affect knowledge and ultimately cultural resilience of different peoples.