The Framingham Disability Study (FDS), a recent component of the Heart Disease Epidemiological Study in Framingham, Massachusetts, was designed to investigate the nature and magnitude of disability among non-institutionalized elderly. From September 1976 through November 1978, 2,654 individuals aged 55 to 84 years from the original Framingham cohort were interviewed in person or by telephone (94 per cent of the potential participant pool). The findings support the well known relationship between physical disability and age. The magnitude of disability, however, is not as great as conventional wisdom might suggest. This paper presents the physical disability prevalence findings and compares these results to earlier epidemiological investigations of disability in the elderly.