This paper reports on the development to date of the numeracy conceptual framework for the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills (ALL) Project. The inclusion of a numeracy scale in the ALL survey offered a significant opportunity to develop a new conceptual framework for adult numeracy. This paper discusses the meaning of numeracy and the notion of numerate behavior, presents a framework of five facets, and looks in some detail at a complexity-rating scheme used to guide construction of the assessment tasks that looks at the question of what makes one numeracy task more difficult than another. (Author)