Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in adults. Although FEV₁ remains the most important physiologic indicator of the severity of airflow obstruction in COPD, its predictive value for mortality is weak when it is higher than 50% of predicted. Furthermore, other easily obtainable clinical variables predict mortality better than the FEV₁ in COPD patients with a wide range of airflow limitation. Chief among these predictors are functional dyspnea, exercise capacity, and the body mass index (BMI), although emerging research suggests a potential role for biomarker profiles in outcome predictions. The validated multidimensional BMI (B), degree of airflow obstruction as expressed by the FEV₁ (O), dyspnea with the modified medical research council (D), and exercise (E) measured with the 6min walk or BODE index encompasses the predictive validity of the best of these variables into a single surrogate measure of disease severity and survival. This article reviews these predictors of mortality in COPD.