Two cycles of pedigree selection for earliness index were achieved in two segregating populations of Egyptian cotton (G. barbadense L.) under late planting condition. The genetic materials were the F 2 , F 3 , F 4 and F 5generations of the crosses Giza 90/Giza 85 (pop. I), and Gi-za85/Giza70(pop.II).The phenotypic coefficient of variation (CV) of earliness index was large in the F 2 -generation and accounted for 18.19 and 34.75% in pop. I and in pop. II; respectively. However, the CV% of the respective parents were very low reflecting their purity. Broad sense heritability of earliness index was very high (0.99 and 0.98) and unreliable in the F 2generations, which resulted in high expected genetic advance of 32.49 and 61.A44% from the mean for pop. I and pop. II; respectively. After two cycles of selection the retained genetic coefficient of variability was sufficient for further cycles of selection, and was 16.20 and 11.32% for pop. I and pop. II; respectively, with very large estimates of broad sense heritability.However, the realized