This document presents the nurse practitioner primary care competencies that a national panel of representatives of nine national organizations of the five primary care nurse practitioner specialties--adult, family, gerontological, pediatric, and women's health--identified as necessary for entry-level primary care nurse practitioners. Section 1 presents an overview of the project to identify the core competencies and suggests ways of using the list of competencies when planning and delivering nurse practitioner education. Section 2 details the methods used to identify, validate, obtain endorsements of, and disseminate the competencies. Section 3 presents the actual competencies and subcompetencies, which were selected in recognition of the fact that nurse practitioners are engaged in the diagnostic process, including critical thinking and integration and interpretation of data. Section 4 lists core competencies in the following domains of nurse practitioner practice: management of patient health/illness status; the nurse practitioner-patient relationship; the teaching-coaching function; professional role; managing and negotiating health care delivery systems; monitoring and ensuring the quality of health care practice; and cultural competence. The bibliography lists 49 references. The appendixes contain lists of national organizations endorsing the competencies, members of the national panel, organizations represented on the national panel, and organizations represented on the validation panel, as well as selected definitions. (MN)