Technical Abstract: A small heat shock protein was isolated and sequenced from the Blue-green sharpshooter, BGSS, Graphocephala atropunctata (Signoret) (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae). The BGSS has been the native vector of Pierce’s disease in vineyards in California for nearly a century. The importance of this vector species provided an opportunity to conduct a genomics approach to produce information which would elucidate leafhopper biology. A cDNA library was made from adult BGSS, and 8,160 expressed sequence tags, ESTs, were produced. After quality scoring 6,836 sequences underwent assembly which produced a set of 1,915 sequences that putatively represented distinct transcripts. Initial annotation of this dataset identified 44 putative protein sequences were characterized through in silico analyses, and published in the NCBI database. BLASTX analyses identified 10 significant homology matches to heat shock proteins, HSP20,40,70,90, which were validated using multiple protein alignment programs. The overall importance of HSP’s are their multiple functions in maintaining protein integrity and activity during stressful conditions, such as extreme heat, cold, drought or disease. The full-length small HSP20 was submitted to NCBI database accession DQ445538.1. Many other genes of interest which have various functions in leafhopper biology and physiology were also identified. The EST sequences reported in this study have been deposited in GenBank’s dbEST under accession numbers EH655849-EH662328 and EH662332.