Sesame is an important oil crop not only in India but worldwide. Understanding of nature of inheritance of sesame plant characteristics is essential for planning of effective breeding strategies. Eight diverse genotypes of sesame were employed in a half-diallel mating to study combining abilities and assess potentials for earliness and seed yield improvement. The 28 F 1 and their eight parents were evaluated in randomized block design with three replications for six characters. Variances due to specific combining ability (SCA) and general combining ability (GCA) for all studied traits were significant. Predictability ratio revealed preponderance of non-additive gene effect for all the characters. Among the parent, AT 158 and AT 177 were good general combiner for earliness along with the former for seed yield and later for plant height. RT 54 for seed yield and days to maturity and ABT 33 for reproductive period and plant height were identified as good general combiner. Most good specific combination for seed yield involved average x low general combiner. Two crosses were identified for developing early maturing high yielding genotypes. Parents like AT 158, AT 177, RT 54 and ABT 33 could be utilized in multiple crossing programme and further intermating of segregants followed by recurrent selection could be an appropriate approach to select desirable recombinants for seed yield and earliness.