We conduct in this study a comparative assessment of the developmental gains registered by 85 Less Developed and 19 More Developed countries (LDCs and MDCs) over the 1965-85 time period. The gains are assessed in terms of the “paired differences” statistical method applied to a number of indicators. The estimates suggest that all countries made significant gains on virtually all indicators. Yet, the gains were unevenly divided among country groups, divided on the basis of per capita income, geographical location and population size. To obtain a broad gauge of the prevailling developmental gap, we computed the number of years that would clapse before a given indicator for a given group would reach this indicator’s value registered by the group of MDCs.