A characteristic feature of the polypeptide chain is its ability to form a restricted set of commonly occurring folding units composed of two or more elements of secondary structure that are adjacent along the chain. Some of these super-secondary structures exhibit a unique handedness and a unique overall fold irrespective of whether they occur in homologous or nonhomologous proteins. Such super-secondary structures are of particular value since they can be used as starting structures in protein modeling. The larger protein folds can be obtained by stepwise addition of other secondary structural elements to the starting structures taking into account a set of simple rules inferred from known principles of protein structure.