Psychometric intelligence and adaptive competence constructs were compared in 5-to 7-year-old children in a rural Philippine barrio. Individual psychometric subtests of intelligence, indigenous with respect to content, and a form for obtaining adults' ratings of children's adaptive competencies (skill in, or adaptation to, the natural and social demands of their environment) were developed. Acceptable reliabilities, increases in performance with age, and reasonable patterns of scale intercorrelations indicate that the two ecologically relevant measures are reasonably reliable and construct-valid operationalizations of the psychometric intelligence and adaptive competence constructs. Concurrent validities of the psychometric intelligence subtests versus school grades demonstrate the meaningfulness of the psychometric intelligence construct in this setting and associate it with “scholastic aptitude,” as in Western settings. Verbal/intellective aspects of adaptive competence—as compared to the children's competence in everyday barrio skills and responsibilities (e.g., domestic and livelihood tasks, personal-care functions)—were found to be more related to school performance and psychometric intelligence.