Background Climate change and its impact have taken centre stage in contemporary political economic discourse. Climate change is posing complex problems that far outweighs the solutions suggested by the conventional analytical tools used for guiding responses to major environmental challenges. This is particularly the case in developing countries like Nigeria. Unsurprisingly the concept of community resilience towards climate change has received a great deal of attention from researchers and policy makers. However, community resilience is a contested concept, which leads to disagreement about the methods of achieving it. The nature of community resilience makes the measurement of the efficiency of the policies designed to increase community resilience problematic, particularly in developing countries where limited funds must be prioritised. Methods The research presented uses a Grounded Delphi Method (GDM) to identify how experts in Nigeria define community resilience and reach a consensus on its measurement in Nigeria’s context and other developing nations. The data collection involved three rounds of Delphi with a panel of 21 experts, the first round employed semi-structured interviews, following the exploratory Delphi approach, and subsequent rounds employed online surveys. Findings: The findings indicate that there is a process of stages that communities need to go through to become resilient to climate change. These begin with coping with climate change, followed by adaptation to climate change with the final stage being transformation in the face of climate change. Twenty indicators are identified categorised under eight elements that are suitable for measuring community resilience at the different stages of this process. It is interesting to note that the experts in Nigeria who participated in the study excluded notions of transformation in their conceptualisation of community resilience illustrating a potential gap in their perceptions of the requirements for how communities can become fully resilient. Conclusion This research provides a method of prioritising specific, measurable indicators to inform policies designed to reduce the impacts of climate change by supporting community resilience in the context of developing countries with limited funding.