Western Governors University (WGU) is a competency-based institution that uses an integrated and holistic approach to competence definition, teaching, and assessment. Building a competency-based degree program begins with competence definition activities that focus on what successful graduates need to be able to "do" and the related skills and information they need to "know." This article describes how WGU initiated its degree program development and obtained an independent definition of competence. The author discusses a competency domain and describes the process of domain definition. Some resources that may be used by faculty members to build a functional domain definition are presented. (Contains 1 figure.)