Can an elite social segment be identified among the ancient Maya? Archaeological investigation was undertaken at Xunantunich, a Late and Terminal Classic Maya center, in Group D, a large group-focused patio cluster of a type often called 'an elite group.' Interpretation of available data indicates that four residential units housed four noble households whose ritual life was expressed publicly at the central temple-pyramid. From excavation of the residential platforms and in nonplatform flat terrain, from soil testing for phosphate content, and from detailed artifact analysis, multiple lines of evidence are considered in order to determine the scale, complexity, and integration of the architectural cluster Up to 70 people lived in large extended-family platform dwellings. Only one household appears to have held greater rank than the others. This household occupied a large masonry structure with private rooms and its artifact assemblage was more varied and included items of symbolic importance Hundreds of stone drills and chert waste were discovered at a small group of mounds. The drills may have been used on shell or perishable materials; no permanent material bears traces of their work. Pieces of slate, some engraved with small motifs, were also found at the group, and may be ritual items. They do not seem to have been created using the drills It does not appear that the nobility at Group D performed an administrative role for the Xunantunich polity. Nor do they appear to have been the patrons of landless citizens. In fact, the nobility appear to have helped maintaine the stability of a power hierarchy of fixed inequality without evidence of a distinct economic or administrative strategy. Rather, their fortune was tied to that of the polity leaders, and they shared the same demise. The residents of Group D were probably related to the royalty of the site center but permanently subordinate in status. Group D was elite because of the privilege accruing to their social and historical connection to a founding ancestor, but not because they were the rich or powerful of the Xunantunich polity