A cognitively based theoretical framework for the assessment of domain competence is proposed. The basic thesis is that to be knowledgeable one must know how the important concepts of a domain are interrelated. This thesis implies that any valid assessment of knowledge must capture these structural properties. The implementation of a structural approach in the assessment of classroom learning is described, and recent findings with college students demonstrating the ability of the approach to predict classroom examination performance are reviewed. The success of the approach is discussed in terms of the benefits derived from integrating the cognitive emphasis on structure and the psychometric emphasis on predictiveness. Thirty-three references and two figures are included. (Author/SLD)