When a message leaves the culture in which it was encoded, it carries the content intended by its producer, but when the message reaches the culture where it is to be interpreted, it undergoes a transformation because the culture in which the message is decoded influences the message interpretation and hence its meaning. As such, culture is in the center of translation, as one of the greatest sources of miscomprehension caused in the process of and post-translation is the mismatch between the source and target text cultures. Hence, the translator, as a knowledge and culture broker, is required to offer compensation that enables source and target text readers to have shared knowledge and culture. This paper first reestablishes the concept of culture-specific item by putting together several different definitions of culture-related terms. Then, it examines what role culture-specific items play in understanding a text and how important they are in the process of translation. Based on a clearer understanding of culture-specific items and in recognition of the role and the importance of the item, this research presents five translation strategies and discusses how such strategies can be deployed and what attentions should be paid in the process of translation. Each strategy exhibits its unique features and has strengths and weaknesses when applied. The translations that serve as the bases for the explanation of translation strategies are taken from The Cry of the Cuckoo, a well-known Korean literature, which contains a number of cultural-specific items.