Standardized achievement tests and instructional accomplishment inventories involve different methodologies and cannot be equated by using conventional psychometric methods. Instructional accomplishment inventories are descriptive, and are designed to reflect the scope, sequence, and skills and emphasis in a particular instructional program. Standardized achievement tests are designed to discriminate between students and do not represent actual instruction. These tests can be equated using a qualitative method which requires a matching of instrument structures at three levels: general instrument, subcatagories, and items. The analysis is performed in sequence at each level to show the correspondence between skills reflected in the instrument. An example of qualitative equating for the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills and the Los Angeles City Schools' Survey of Essential Skills in reading and mathematics for grades 3 and 6 is given. Qualitative analysis may reveal that there is no meaningful basis for statistical equating. If the testing instruments do have a qualitative relationship, the statistical relationship between the instruments takes on a better informed meaning. (BS)