In the context of global integration, the importance of intercultural cooperation and the ability to effectively function in a multicultural environment, as well as intercultural discourse communities is constantly growing. As effective communication is one of the premises of successful cooperation and activity, the ability to communicate effectively in the intercultural context becomes indispensable from the performance of a modern specialist (Fortner, 1993; Hamelink, 1995; Scollon and Scollon, 1995; Bender, 1996; Jones, 1997 and others). Thus the development of students' communicative competence in foreign languages has become one of essential aims of university education, as well as an important research subject. A specific character of developing communicative competence in foreign languages at university of a country undergoing transformations (exemplified by Lithuanian in this particular research) can be described by two problematic aspects: on the one hand, the learners' need to effectively integrate into intercultural academic and professional discourse communities; on the other hand, in the situations of foreign language learning the potential of a motivating relationship to the sociocultural context of natural linguistic environment is limited. Lithuania may be characterised by sociocultural transformations (first of all, the need to integrate into European and global contexts after the long period of exclusion) and a relatively homogeneous ethnolinguistic community. The environments of language learning can be defined as contexts of foreign language learning, where learners' contacts with linguistic environment of the target language are the most intensive in the classroom, and the opportunities of exposure to natural language and intercultural environment are rather limited. These aspects determine the need to create educational environments which would make the process of developing students' communicative competence more effective. The paper focuses on theoretical and practical assumptions of creating educational environments for the development of students' communicative competence. The first part of the paper presents the theoretical model of a targeted educational environment for the development of students' communicative competence in the English language at university. The second part of the paper aims to provide rationale for the research methodology on the manifestation of elements of a targeted educational environment in the process of developing students' communicative competence in foreign languages and to empirically test the manifestation of these elements in developing students' communicative competence. The third part of the paper discusses the results of a questionnaire survey carried out to determine the manifestation of different elements of a targeted educational environment for the development of communicative competence from the perspectives of students at Kaunas University of Technology, the largest technical university in the Baltic States.