Summary. That children's and adults' different intellectual abilities are to a considerable extent autonomous, and do not depend upon general ability or intelligence, is indicated by six kinds of evidence: (1) biographical and autobiographical reports, (2) patterns of ability in autistic and mentally handicapped individuals, including “idiots savants”, (3) brain damage effects, (4) the absence of inter‐task interference, (5) evidence of extraordinary abilities in people of average intelligence, and (6) findings suggesting that cognitive complexity may be unrelated to measured intelligence. It is argued that correlations betwen an individual's levels of performance at different abilities, which have often been interpreted as providing evidence of a general ability factor, can in fact be readily explained as being due either to elements that are shared by different tasks, or to any of a variety of a person's attributes that can influence performance at each of a number of tasks. Educational implications of acknowledging that separate intellectual skills are largely autonomous are discussed.