The transition turmoil creates a complex message for sustainable development. The author aims to reveal the synergies and contradictions between the period of transition and the progress to sustainable development in Lithuania in 1990 to 2004. The research provides insights into assessment of national sustainable development methodology and supplies a framework of sustainable development assessment for economies in transition. The framework is based on three principles of sustainable development: principle of carrying capacity, principle of intergenerational equity and principle of intragenerational equity. A three-tier system has been formed: each principle has been assigned two operational criteria and a number of sustainable development indicators. The research demonstrates that the transition period has moved Lithuania closer to sustainability according to the principles of carrying capacity and intergenerational equity, however, the period of the last fifteen years was not so favourable for the principle of intragenerational equity.