The estimated production function shows that victim/offender relationships and emotionally motivated homicides contribute most to homicide solutions. Investigator experience is the next most important factor, and it appears to be more significant for larger police jurisdictions and for crimes with lower solution probabilities. It follows that homicide characteristics causing the greatest difficulties are the absence of a victim/offender relationship and a significant degree of offender rationality. Identifying areas of greatest difficulty may suggest what policies, programs, and technologies may produce the best results in solving homicides. For example, dealing with the relatively minor effect of community preferences will generate a small payoff in terms of homicide solutions. On the other hand, the fact that offender rationality has a large negative effect on homicide solutions implies that some training in economic reasoning and rational behavior may be beneficial in investigator training. The marginal value of any solution per dollar expenditure must be considered. 21 references and 6 notes