In this article, the authors review the Clinical Assessment of Depression (CAD), a 50-item self-report measure of depressive symptoms designed for children, adolescents, adults, and elderly adults from 8 to 79 years of age. Purporting to be sensitive to depressive symptomatology across the lifespan, the test items were written to reflect the diagnostic criteria for depression based on the fourth edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Text Revision" ("DSM-IV-TR"), as well as current literature in child, adolescent, and adult depression. The test items also include beliefs and behaviors experienced by people with depression. Attempting to provide test users "with a brief, easily administered, comprehensive, and technically sound instrument for the assessment of depressive symptoms among children, adolescents, and adults," the CAD allows for longitudinal monitoring of the same set of depressive symptoms throughout an individual's life, which some of the extant measures of depression do not allow for (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory; Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale). The authors find that this instrument demonstrates potential use in a variety of settings, although more research is required for applications of the CAD in clinical settings. Given the limitations of self-report measures, when administered as part of a comprehensive psychoeducational or psychological assessment, the CAD facilitates the identification of depression in children, adolescents, adults, and elderly adults. (Contains 1 table.)