This thesis explores the application of the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) and its real-time extension, VTB-RT, for protective relay modeling, simulation, and testing. An instantaneous overcurrent relay model was developed in VTB for a transmission line protection. The same relay model was built in Matlab/Simulink for validation purposes. Both models were tested for various fault conditions on a radial power system and results were compared. Moreover, a low cost real-time Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation platform was implemented for relay model testing using VTB-RT and public domain software packages such as Real-Time Application Interface (RTAI), Comedi, and Comedilib, and notebook computer hardware. The applicability of VTB-RT was verified through an open-loop simulation and a HIL simulation of a simple dynamic system using dSPACE as the control hardware and NI DAQCard-6062E as the input/output interface. Simulation results are presented showing the effectiveness of the VTB-RT platform for model testing.