Prediction of cross-talk is an important facet of multicore fiber (MCF) design. Several approaches for estimating cross-talk in MCF have been proposed but none are faultless, especially when applied to MCF with heterogeneous cores. We propose a new calculation approach that attempts to solve this problem. In our approach, cross-talk in multicore fibers is estimated by coupled power theory. The coefficients in the coupled power equation are theoretically calculated by the central limit theorem and by quantum mechanical time-dependent perturbations. The results from our calculations agree with those of Monte Carlo simulations of heterogeneous MCFs.