The report is a reference document to the Commentary on the August 1986 edition of the AISI Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel structural Members. The unified design approach developed in this report includes the treatments of compression elements, columns, beams and beam columns. The approach covers with compression elements that are locally stable as well as those in the post-local buckling range at overall failure. The overall failure modes include flexual, lateral and torsional-flexural. The unified design approach developed was checked on the basis of analytical and parametric studies. The results of carefully conducted tests were also used in the verification of the proposed approach.