Intellectual capital at the macroeconomic (country) level is a new area of research that focuses on understanding, measuring and reporting of intangible assets that can have an influence the creation of national wealth. The concept is abstract, unequivocal and complex, which causes individual authors to differentiate their interpretation of this economic category. The paper presents an analysis of approaches to defining and classifying national intellectual capital (NIC). This enables the authors to identify various perspectives on the topic.