If you are talking about shell and tube heat exchanger, then the shell has a certain volume. Inside would be tubes. One fluid would flow through the tubes and exchange heat with another fluid flowing through the shell.
Through the use of baffles, the flowing through the shell, or the fluid flowing through the tubes, can be made to have what is called passes, and as many as you want, but usually limited to a smaller number.
A one pass shell, one pass tube design has all shell fluid exchanging heat with all tubes, parallel flow or counter flow.
A two pass shell, one pass tube design, has all shell fluid exchanging heat with half the tubes parallel flow, and then the other half of tubes counter flow.
A one pass shell, two pass tube design has all shell flow exchanging heat with all the tube flow half the tubes in parallel flow, and then with hlaf the tubes in counter flow.
And so on...( if I have the explanations correct )
There can also be crossflow design of the fluid(s)
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger
for some pics
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_and_tube_heat_exchanger
for some more pics.