Measures of developmental assets were created as a new self-report to assess positive attitudes and behaviour among at-risk youth. The measure was examined in a sample of 744 at-risk youth aged between 13 and 25 who dwell in public housing projects in Malaysia. The Malaysian version of the developmental assets measures 23 dimensions of the participants in respect of their positive attitude and behaviour towards society, significant others and self. The results show that this measure has good psychometric properties, and is significantly associated with other constructs. This measure is useful in basic and applied research, and for intervention programmes. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.