Faculty and residents in family medicine rated the degree of importance for a resident to have mastered each of 123 performance objectives by the end of residency training. The performance objectives, developed at the national level, describe the diagnosis, treatment, and management of clinic patients with hypertension. While faculty members' ratings of the objectives were in moderate agreement, the ratings of the residents by level of training were in low agreement. A comparison of faculty and resident ratings resulted in very low agreement. An analysis of the type and nature of the performance objectives and topic areas where disagreement occurred was also conducted. The results indicate that while disagreement was widespread, no pattern for the disagreement was evident. Implications for the use of performance objectives developed outside a local residency program are discussed.