The breadth of Sweden’s multicultural policy has left it as one of the few truly multiculturalist countries in the West. This exceptionalism is puzzling and has generated a lot of attention from scholars and the public alike. Using a policy process perspective, this article traces its process of adoption in the 1970s. It shows that the adoption of an official multicultural policy relied crucially on Olof Palme and his ideas in his role as an ‘activist gatekeeper.’ The article takes as illustration the country’s first State Cultural Policy passed in 1974.