The term "controversial" has been used in the professional literature to describe children and adolescents who have the seemingly paradoxical quality of being both socially skilled and antisocial. Although there have been some widely influential studies regarding controversial children and youth, there has been relatively little research in this area, and the general construct is not well understood. This study addressed the lack of knowledge of characteristics of controversial children and youth through careful descriptive analysis of large, national norming samples from two social and antisocial behavior rating scales. Two experimental subscales were created to represent the characteristics associated with being controversial. Possible cutoff scores for each subscale were investigated to best reflect the criterion developed to represent the controversial construct, and the specific characteristics of the obtained samples were carefully analyzed. Results of this preliminary exploration indicated that (a) the percentage of children and adolescents who fit the characteristics of the controversial criterion are quite small, (b) two thirds of those identified as controversial were boys between the ages of 10 and 14, and (c) a greater number of girls were identified when data from home and community settings rather than school settings were analyzed. Implications of the results for future research and educational/clinical practice are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)