Vary a material in the different actors of a mesh.

So, I have a mesh with multiple material instances applied, and I need to duplicate the actors of it (I believe is the correct way to reffer to the mesh on the scene), and also to change one of the materials on every copy. Is there some way to do this without having to duplicate the mesh every time I need a copy of the actors of that mesh with a variation on its materials? I am going to ask it differently. Is it possible to have various actors with different materials that are instanced on the same mesh? (Sorry for the bad explanation, spanish is my first language)

When the mesh is selected, you can change all its materials in the details panel. Is that what you mean?