This article attempts to trace the origins of competency-based training (CBT), the theory of vocational education that underpins the National Training Framework in Australia. A distinction is made between societal and theoretical origins. This paper argues that CBT has its societal origins in the United States of America during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Public debate and government initiatives centred on the widely held view that there was a problem with the quality of education in the United States. One of the responses to this crisis was the Performance-Based Teacher Education movement which synthesised the theory of education that became CBT. The theoretical origins of CBT derive principally from behaviourism and systems theory--two broad theoretical orientations that influenced educational debate in the United States during the formative period of CBT. Most of the component parts of CBT were contributed by specialists with a background in one or both of these theoretical orientations.