The Georgia Rural Development Council (GRDC) requested that a single index, capable of showing the economic and human vitality condition of each county in the state of Georgia, be formulated. It is important that the index be able to be benchmarked against other states and over a period of time. The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the GRDC proposed that the set of variables selected should represent the most important human and economic factors of the state. Furthermore, the TAC proposed 1980 as the benchmark year. The Economic Vitality Index and the Human Vitality Index would be calculated for 1980, 1990, 2000 and forward as the latest data available allows. Specifically, the Technical Advisory Committee recommended the following process to form the benchmarks used to compare Georgia’s counties to seven Southeastern States and the United States. The calculations were performed for both the Human Vitality Index and the Economic Vitality Index.