Members of the leafhopper tribe Chiasmini (=Doraturni;12 genera, 360 species) are among the most common and abundant insects in grasslands throughout the world. Some, such as the green rice leafhoppers, Nephotettix virsescens (Distant) and congeners, are important vectors of phytopathogenic diseases of crops. Many species are brachypterous and are typically monophagous or narrowly oligophagous on particular genera or species of Poaceae, which apparently predisposes them to high levels of endemicity and speciation. Despite the common feature of brachyptery, the tribe appears to have attained its current worldwide distribution through long distance dispersal and migration along ancient land bridges. The first explicit phylogenetic hypothesis for the tribe was constructed in this study and used 376 bp of the nuclear protein coding gene histone H3 and ~1000 bp of the mitochondrial ND1 gene to infer relationships among the world chiasmine fauna. This phylogeny suggests that the tribe originated in the Old World and subsequently invaded the New World at least twice- once by long distance dispersal in the macropterous genus Exitianus Ball and once, possibly through a land bridge connection, in the extraordinarily diverse brachypterous genus Athysanella Baker.