Issues related to achieving adequate national norms are reviewed, and a new methodology is proposed that would work to provide a true measure of national achievement levels on an annual basis and would enable reporting results in current-year norms. Statistical methodology and technology could combine to create a national norming process that would publish an annual national norm soon after test users complete their regular annual testing programs. This approach would be supplemented by a small national normative sample and adjusted by a factor to reduce the influence of users. This approach would also include almost immediate turnaround of the current-year norms to allow schools to report their annual scores using those norms. Schools already giving a test would transmit their data electronically to a central location. Schools in the normative sample would test and transmit their data. A current year norm table could then be produced. This type of norming procedure would probably require a national center for test norming, as well as cooperation among test publishers. Cooperation from school districts would be secured by the fact that they could have national norms within weeks of transmitting their raw data. It should ultimately be possible to establish a national educational achievement indicator to rival Scholastic Aptitude Test scores--an indicator with the simplicity of the Dow Jones average or the Consumer Price Index. Nine figures illustrate the discussion. (SLD)