Medical imaging technologies have become increasingly important in the clinical ­management of cancer, and now play key roles in cancer screening, diagnosis, staging, and monitoring response to treatment. Standard imaging modalities such as MRI, PET, and CT require ­significant financial resources and infrastructure, which limits access to these modalities to those patients in high-resource settings. In contrast, optical imaging strategies, with the ­potential for reduced cost and enhanced portability, are emerging as additional tools to facilitate the early detection and diagnosis of cancer. This article presents a vision for an expanding role for optical imaging in global cancer management, including screening, early detection at the point-of-care, biopsy guidance, and real-time histology. Multi-modal optical imaging – the combination of widefield and high resolution imaging - has the potential to aid in the detection and management of precancer and early cancer for traditionally underserved populations. Several recent widefield and high-resolution optical imaging technologies are described, along with requirements for implementing such devices into lower-resource ­ settings.