This thesis uses a modified social background approach to elite analysis as a basis for examining the New Zealand Diplomatic Service. The approach is conventional in that it draws heavily on data about the social origins (class, demographic etc.) of diplomats but is somewhat unorthodox in that it also examines diplomats' continuing interactions with, and attitudes to other groups in society. Throughout the study the emphasis is on a comparative analysis, with data on diplomats being related in particular to data on the New Zealan' d population as a whole, other New Zealand bureaucrats and to overseas Foreign Services. The thesis can be divided into roughly four parts. In the first two chapters the subject is introduced and the approach used herein outlined and defended. These chapters also give a brief outline of elite theory and comparable overseas studies in order to point up the type of elite features which it is useful to look for in the New Zealand context. Secondly, the thesis examines features of the Service (e.g. age, sex and educational characteristics) that are known for the whole group. Following on from this chapters 4 and 5 use responses to a mail questionnaire to investigate aspects of diplomats' social background which are not available as a data resource in any other form. Prominent among these is an examination of the social class origins of diplomats, their continuing social and occupational interactions and their subjective assessment of their occupation and other groups they come in contact with. In the final chapter the data is synthesised to show that the Diplomatic Service, while not conforming well to any particular model of elite analysis, is in any usual sense of the term an elite group.