Some industry cluster studies involve detailed examination of the characteristics and competitive foundations of the local industrial base or investigation of formal and informal networks among local businesses. Others explore regional, national, and global linkages that manifest themselves through interindustry trade, management practices, and corporate governance of extended value chains. In practice, data limitations, differing views about the industry cluster concept and how it should be operationalized, and the sheer variety of planning and policy issues motivating applied studies have led to the development of multiple approaches to cluster analysis. This paper discusses a particular approach to regional industry cluster analysis--the use of interindustry benchmarks--and illustrates the use of one particular operationalization of that approach--the use of value chains derived from observed national interindustry trading patterns as a tool in an exploratory analysis of a region’s economic base. The paper does not claim that the use of interindustry benchmarks is the universal standard bearer in analysis, or even that it is always the least flawed among a set of partially flawed approaches, but it does argue that the benchmark approach is very useful for some kinds of applications and policy contexts.