Multisensory responses have been observed throughout the central auditory pathway, yet the origin, function and perceptual consequences of cross-modal integration remain unresolved. Recent studies have applied modern neuroanatomical and functional perturbation techniques to dissect the circuits that might enable multisensory information to sculpt the processing of sound. These highlight in particular the role that subcortical pathways might play in relaying multisensory information to, and between, sensory cortical fields. We also examine the consequences of integrating non-auditory information into auditory processing, identifying key areas where this may be critical for successful listening and potential roles for visual information in augmenting auditory scene analysis, and for non-auditory information in facilitating coordinate frame transformations.