AbstractThe Kepler Mission successfully launched March 6, 2009, beginning its 3.5-year mission to determine the frequency of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of late-type stars. The brightnesses of over 100,000 stars are currently being monitored for transit events with an expected differential photometric precision of 20 ppm at V=12 for a 6.5-hour transit. The same targets will be observed continuously over the mission duration in order to broaden the detection space to orbital periods comparable to that of Earth. This paper provides an overview of the selection and prioritization criteria used to choose the stars that Kepler is observing from the > 4.5 million objects in the 100 square degree field of view. The characteristics of the Kepler targets are described as well as the implications for detectability of planets in the habitable zone smaller than 2R_⊕.