In every curriculum development effort, whether it is done in-house or under contract, it is necessary to estimate the funds which will be required for completion of the effort. Too often, this cost estimation is calculated using nonsystematic methods. Usually, the estimator's individual intuition and past experience are the only bases for this crucial work. The final curriculum often suffers when poor initial cost estimation leads to either deficient resources for the development effort or wasted funds because of over-estimation. This paper details a method for systematically estimating curriculum development costs. The proposed method breaks the projected development effort down into the tasks called for by the Instructional Systems Development (ISD) model (i.e., objective development, instructional sequencing, etc.). The work effort required to perform these ISD tasks is then examined in light of the total length of the course and the projected hourly costs for development time. Using this method, a curriculum cost estimate is developed which is based upon the learning complexity of the tasks to be trained. The tasks to be trained can be divided into five categories (Gagne, 1979): verbal information, intellectual skills, motor skills, attitudes, and cognitive strategies.