One of the first and most important steps in designing an assessment instrument is the definition of the construct. A construct consists of a clearly spelled out definition of exactly what a test designer understands to be involved in a given skill or ability. This task not only involves naming the ability, knowledge, or behavior that is being assessed but also involves breaking that knowledge, ability or behavior into the elements that formulate a construct (Fulcher 2003) and can be captured and measured by a rubric. Currently, there is no one definition of translation competence and its components that is universally accepted within the academic field of Translation Studies (Arango-Keith & Koby 2003). Neither is there a rubric that can capture different levels of competency in translation. Instead, there is a continuing debate about how to define translation competence and exactly how its constituent elements are to be conceptualized, broken down, interconnected and measured. This paper reviews the literature from Translation Studies, Testing and Second Language Acquisition and proposes sub-components of a rubric to assess the construct of translation competence.