Although conodonts are known from widely scattered Lower Ordovician exposures in North America, most occurrences are poorly documented and are based on a few specimens from isolated samples. In the House and Confusion Ranges of western Utah, conodonts occur almost continuously through 2700 feet of Lower Ordovician strata. Five conodont faunas can be recognized in this succession and these serve as a standard for comparison with less continuous sequences elsewhere. The lowest fauna, in rocks traditionally interpreted as uppermost Cambrian, but now recognized to be of Tremadocian age, has been reported from southern Oklahoma and southern Mexico. The second fauna from western Utah, dominated by cordylodids with less abundant generalized distacodontids, also occurs at several Rocky Mountain localities and probably in Pennsylvania as well. The third fauna displays the earliest diversification of conodonts in North America and is known from the Appalachians, the Midcontinent, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Alberta, Arizona, and the Great Basin. The next fauna, characterized by a variety of distacodontid elements, is present in southern Oklahoma, Alberta, Arizona, the Midcontinent, and Pennsylvania. The youngest fauna, marked by the introduction of new longranging elements, is known to occur in west Texas, southern Oklahoma, the Midcontinent, and the Alberta Rocky Mountains. Careful sampling of continuous exposures in different parts of the continent is required if conodonts are to play an important role in Lower Ordovician biostratigraphy in North America.