This article introduces Nussbaum’s highly influential ‘capabilities approach’ to human development. Nussbaum argues that the appropriate normative framework for thinking about improving human beings’ lives around the world consists of a list of capabilities—entitlements to opportunities for fulfilling meaningful, basic functions of human life. The article illustrates this approach by focusing on the deprivations of capabilities facing women globally. Nussbaum defends cross-cultural norms, upon which the approach relies, against charges of Western colonialism and paternalism. She also points to deficiencies in traditional resource- and preference-based approaches to human development, which the capabilities approach seeks to overcome. The language of the capabilities approach is closely related to the language of human rights. In fact, Nussbaum thinks that the capabilities approach provides the most coherent justification for human rights. Ultimately, the capabilities approach is a powerful resource upon which women and others can draw to articulate problems of social justice and measure progress.