Communities with a high prevalence of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) knowledge have a greater out of hospital cardiac arrest survival rate. Within metropolitan Adelaide, 12.4% of the community is from a non-English speaking country and 20.3% of these have a poor proficiency in English. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of ethnicity (specifically, Southern European born (SEB) and South East Asian born (SEAB)) and a poor proficiency in English (PENG) on CPR skill acquisition. Population Census postcode data were compared to postcode student CPR classes attendance. Results showed a negative correlation between SEB (-0.44), SEAB (-0.36), PENG (-0.42) with CPR class attendance. Postcodes with a less than community average of SEB, SEAB and PENG had an average proportion of CPR class attendees of 2.64% (C.I. 2.43, 2.85), 2.54% (C.I. 2.35, 2.73) and 2.65% (C.I. 2.35, 2.73), respectively, whilst those postcodes with a greater than community average had 2.03% (C.I. 1.90, 2.16), 2.07% (C.I. 1.90, 2.24) and 2.04% (C.I. 1.90, 2.18) proportion of CPR class attendees. The difference for each category was significant to a P < 0.001. This study points to SEB, SEAB, and PENG as factors associated with fewer CPR class attendances. Future CPR classes should specifically target and cater for ethnic groups from non-English speaking countries with poor English skills if CPR skills are to be widely disseminated throughout the entire community.