Educators in local school systems who have been assigned the task of developing programs for gifted children often experience difficulty deciding what giftedness is. This difficulty stems from the fact that neither researchers nor educators agree as to which of a myriad of abilities actually constitute giftedness. Research literature on cultural differences suggests that a solution to the problem might lie in the development of a definition based on the attitudes and perceptions of the population to whom the definition is to be applied. In light of these suggestions, this study focused on the development of a definition of giftedness based on the attitudes and perceptions of the residents of a rural county in Appalachia. The site specific definition was subsequently compared with the most widely used conventional definition, i.e., the federal definition. A second focal point of the study was the elicitation of a list of respondents' perceptions of means of identifying gifted children and a list of appropriate educational services for these children. Again, the site specific elements were compared with their conventional counterparts. The Renzulli/Hartman Scale for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students served as a basis of comparison for the identification criteria. The conventional approach to the provision of services was derived from a synthesis of a body of literature describing special educational services for gifted children. The data collection centered around the determination of local attitudes and perceptions. The methodology, the Heuristic Elicitation Methodology, is one that is used by anthropologists and psycholinguists who seek to assess the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and preferences of specific groups. For the respondents, giftedness is a global concept comprising 18 elements. These elements are perceived as being closely related to each other in that they share a number of common features. The analysis also resulted in 16 items that are attributes of gifted people. Finally, the analysis showed that there are 13 kinds of educational services that are appropriate for gifted children. Some of these gifts/talents, attributes, and services are similar to their conventional counterparts; others are not. / Ph. D.