AbstractIn this paper we focus on compacta$K \subseteq \mathbb {R}^3$which possess a neighbourhood basis that consists of nested solid tori$T_i$. We call these sets toroidal. Making use of the classical notion of the geometric index of a curve inside a torus, we introduce the self-geometric index of a toroidal setK, which roughly captures how each torus$T_{i+1}$winds inside the previous$T_i$as$i \rightarrow +\infty $. We then use this index to obtain some results about the realizability of toroidal sets as attractors for homeomorphisms of$\mathbb {R}^3$.