In this paper, design of a laminate is treated as a combinatorial optimization problem. Optimization of the stacking sequence of a laminate for buckling response, matrix cracking, and strength requirements is conducted. Optimum designs are generated using a heuristic search technique known as Tabu search. Preliminary studies used to examine the effect of different aspects of Tabu search are presented. Three load cases, which have been used in previous studies with Genetic Algorithm, were utilized in this work. The relative performance of Tabu search compared to Genetic Algorithm was found to depend on the load case. For the first two cases, and for average of all the three load cases, Tabu search was found to reduce the computing cost of generating equivalent results by 26, 55 and 1%, respectively. For the third load case, the computing cost with Tabu search was higher by 302%.