Drawing on the civil society & civic community literatures, this study applies the theory of social capital to the study of suicide. Macro-level data are analyzed to determine the relationship between the social capital of an area & the prevalence of suicide. Negative binomial regression is used to examine American counties of 100,000 residents or more (urban) & counties of 1,000-25,000 residents (rural) to determine the effect of six community social capital measures on race, gender, & age-specific suicide rates. Results indicate much variation among social groups. Urban areas were found to be more responsive to community social capital than were rural areas, although not all social capital indicators had the effect of reducing suicide rates.