Police officers, social workers, pediatricians, prosecutors, and jurors often have difficulty deciding whether children's accounts of abuse are credible. This study showed that experienced interviewers were much better able to identify as credible accounts that were plausible when the interviews were conducted using the structured NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol. Implausible accounts, those allegations that were contradicted by independent evidence were much more difficult to identify accurately as incredible, whether or not the Protocol was used. The results suggest that use of the protocol should facilitate judgments about credibility in the majority of cases. Most research has been focused on investigative strategies designed to enhance the amount and quality of information that children can provide, but the assessment of children's credibility has also received considerable attention. Even though systematic tools to assess credibility have been developed, they have not been empirically validated. The NICHD protocol covers all phases of the investigative interview and is designed to translate research-based recommendations into operational guidelines in order to enhance the retrieval of information, complete, and accurate accounts of abuse by young alleged victims and witnesses. This study of Israeli youth investigators predicted that credibility could be assessed more accurately and with higher levels of interrater reliability and confidence when the interviews were conducted using the NICHD protocol rather than without the protocol. Tables, references