  It is conceivable that there is an $SU(N)_{\ell}$ `colour' gauge group for
leptons, analogous to the gauged $SU(3)_q$ colour group of the quarks. The
standard model emerges as the low energy effective theory when the leptonic
colour is spontaneously broken. The simplest such generalised leptonic colour
models are constructed. We show that the see-saw mechanism for small neutrino
masses, along with the theoretical constraint of electric charge quantisation,
suggests that the models with $N = 3, 5, 7$ are the theoretically most
promising cases. A striking feature of generalized leptonic colour is the
physics associated with the extra leptonic degrees of freedom -- the liptons.
These particles can potentially be discovered at future colliders, such as the
LHC, making the idea testable in the near future.
