  In this paper, we take a modest first step towards a systematic study of
chromatic numbers of Cayley graphs on abelian groups. We lose little when we
consider these graphs only when they are connected and of finite degree. As in
the work of Heuberger and others, in such cases the graph can be represented by
an $m\times r$ integer matrix, where we call $m$ the dimension and $r$ the
rank. Adding or subtracting rows produces a graph homomorphism to a graph with
a matrix of smaller dimension, thereby giving an upper bound on the chromatic
number of the original graph. In this article we develop the foundations of
this method. In a series of follow-up articles using this method, we completely
determine the chromatic number in cases with small dimension and rank; prove a
generalization of Zhu's theorem on the chromatic number of $6$-valent integer
distance graphs; and provide an alternate proof of Payan's theorem that a
cube-like graph cannot have chromatic number 3.
