Line emissions of high- and low-density molecular tracers serve as powerful diagnostic tools for the ISM in both Galactic and extragalactic star formation environments. The emission line strengths and line ratios may be interpreted using detailed modeling of both the dominant physics and the chemistry of the molecular constituents. Observed molecular line ratios will thus reveal the signatures of dominant UV, X-ray, and CR radiation fields and of mechanical heating and feedback from the star formation process. In addition, certain line ratios reflect the physical and chemical changes resulting from the time-evolution of a star formation region. In this paper, we present results of Galactic sources and extragalactic starbursts covering a large range of FIR luminosities and illustrate the similarities between the diagnostics of these environments.
