A progressive failure analysis procedure for composite laminates is developed in here and in the companion paper. An anisotropic plastic constitutive model for fiber-reinforced composite material, is developed, which is simple and efficient to be implemented into computer program for a predictive analysis procedure of composites. In current development of the constitutive model, an incremental elastic-plastic constitutive model is adopted to represent progressively the nonlinear material behavior of composite materials until a material failure is predicted. An anisotropic initial yield criterion is established that includes the effects of different yield strengths in each material direction, and between tension and compression. Anisotropic work-hardening model and subsequent yield surface are developed to describe material behavior beyond the initial yield under the general loading condition. The current model is implemented into a computer code, which is Predictive Analysis for Composite Structures (PACS), and is presented in the companion paper. The accuracy and efficiency of the anisotropic plastic constitutive model are verified by solving a number of various fiber-reinforced composite laminates with and without geometric discontinuity. The comparisons of the numerical results to the experimental and other numerical results available in the literature indicate the validity and efficiency of the developed model.