This study was carried out during the three successive seasons of 2004/2005, 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 at the Experimental Farm of Faculty of Agriculture, Sohag University, Egypt. Two durum wheat populations (Triticum durum L.) in F₃ generation of the crosses Chahba 88 x Bani-Swief 1 and Carcomun x Sohag 3 were used in this investigation. One hundred F₃ families underwent pedigree selection in the F₃ basic materials. The best plant from each of the best 20 families for each selection criterion, namely days to heading, greater 100-kernel weight and higher grain yield were saved to give the F₄ families. The analysis of variance showed highly significant differences between F₃ families in both populations and satisfactory genotypic coefficients of variation were detected for some traits. Grain yield increased after two cycles of selection in the two populations relative to the better parent by 14.14% in Pop.1 and by 15.97% in Pop.2, respectively. Selection for 100-kernel weight increased grain yield by 9.86% in Pop.1 and by 8.03% in Pop.2 as compared to the better parent. The best two families No. 24 and 46 in Pop.1; and No. 1 and 21 in Pop.2 were higher in grain yield than the better parent by 21.15 and 16.67%; 23.62 and 25.56%, respectively, when grain yield was used as a selection criterion. After two cycles of selection, the realized gains indicated that heading date was reduced by 13.42 and 9.21 days for Pop.1 and Pop.2 respectively, as compared to the base population. The pedigree selection procedure has been proposed in wheat as an effective breeding methodology for developing high yielding genotypes.