The Nursing Career Preference Inventory (NCPI) was developed to assist nurses in determining which of the four primary nursing practice areas--clinical, administration, research, or education--are most reflective of their personal work activity interests or preferences, and which of 14 customary hospital nursing role positions most often encompass the preferred work activity patterns. This report describes NCPI development and the reliability and validity of the instrument for VA and non-VA hospital nurse reference groups. Correlations between work activity responses of VA and non-VA nurses in the same positions ranged from .71 to .96, and alpha reliability coefficients for the four practice and activity item subsets ranged from .86 to .93 for the two nurse populations. Although additional work is needed to explore item consistency over time, the NCPI can be a useful tool in career development programs that are designed to assist nurses toward selecting nursing role positions and building career plans that reflect their own personal talents and interests.