Estimates are made of active life expectancy for the U.S. elderly and oldest-old populations using data from the 1982 and 1984 National Long Term Care Surveys. In the calculation of active life expectancy a multivariate analysis of 27 measures of functioning was used to define scores to decompose total life expectancy by type and level of disability. These analyses showed significant differences in active life expectancy for males and females. Though a higher proportion of male life expectancy at age 65 was "active," females had larger absolute amounts of active life expectancy. By age 85, in contrast, males had a higher absolute amount of active life expectancy. In addition, calculations were performed with the disability associated with cognitive impairment eliminated in order to illustrate the sensitivity of active life expectancy to changes in morbidity.