A general analytical procedure is developed for evaluating the free vibration characteristics of orthotropic and laminated composite circular cylindrical shells. The solution is obtained through a direct solution procedure with axial mode displacements presented as simple Fourier series expressions. On the basis of the various thin shell theories most commonly used, the frequency equation is derived and is expressed in a unified form. The present analysis can deal with shells which are made of an arbitrary number of bonded layers each with a different thickness and different elastic orthotropic properties, and have classical boundary conditions of any kind. Several examples are shown with the consideration of the effects of fiber orientations and boundary conditions as well as different shell geometries and material properties. To verify the validity and accuracy of this analysis, the results are compared with the experimental and analytical results of other workers. Agreement among the various results is found to be fairly good.