Gateway systems and methods are disclosed for allowing for communication between a real world environment and a virtual world environment. A gateway system in one embodiment is implemented between the virtual world environment and the real world environment. For a session being initiated from a real world user to a virtual world user, the gateway system receives a signaling message from the real world user to initiate the session with the virtual world user, and processes the signaling message to identify a virtual world identifier assigned to the virtual world user. The gateway system converts the signaling message to a communication request message in a protocol used in the virtual world environment, and transmits the communication request message to the virtual world user to establish the session. When the session is established, the virtual world user and the real world user may communicate via voice and/or data.