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Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) is an important Solanaceae vegetable. It is a good source of minerals and vitamins and has medicinal properties. India, being a primary center of origin, possesses large variability for growth habit; leaf blade lobing; calyx color; fruit shape, size, and color; and color distribution. The objective of this study was to develop a core set of brinjal germplasm to facilitate access, conservation, and utilization. Germplasm accessions (1798) were evaluated in 2005 and 2006. Data were recorded for 28 morphological (14 qualitative and 14 quantitative) descriptors. The accessions were classifi ed into 15 groups based on the regions and continents of their origin. Ten percent accessions were allocated to different groups, in direct proportion to the diversity summed across all qualitative descriptors in a group. From each group, accessions were selected by the “principal component score strategy” (PCSS). A comparison of means, variances, and phenotypic correlations for quantitative descriptors, and the Shannon–Wiener Diversity Index (H´) for qualitative descriptors indicated that the genetic variation for these descriptors was conserved in the core set. This core set can be evaluated intensively for agronomic traits, economic traits including resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses to identify accessions with desirable traits for use in crop improvement research and genomic studies.