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This issue of ‘Centerfocus’ synthesises the findings of the report entitled ‘Making sense of industry-based skill standards’ by Thomas Bailey and Donna Merritt, published in 1995 and indexed at TD/INT 57.244. In the United States of America (USA), there is general belief that developing a national system of standards will contribute to the nation’s economic success. It is suggested by its advocates that such a system will facilitate flexibility and portability of workers’ skills across occupations, industries and geographic areas, and will assist in matching schooling with workplace needs more accurately. In this paper, the author outlines two models of skill-standards development and skill certification - the professional model and the skill-components model. The models were developed on the results of an analysis of the skill standards movement and 22 Department of Labor and Education pilot projects for developing skill standards for a number of industries in the USA.