  Intense, compact, star-forming galaxies are rare in the local Universe but
ubiquitous at high redshift. We interpret the 0.1-22 um spectral energy
distributions (SED) of a sample of 180 galaxies at 0.05<z<0.25 selected for
extremely high surface densities of inferred star formation in the ultraviolet.
By comparison with well-established stellar population synthesis models we find
that our sample comprises young (~ 60 - 400 Myrs), moderate mass (~ $6\times
10^9$ Msun) star-forming galaxies with little dust extinction (mean stellar
continuum extinction $E_\mathrm{cont}$(B-V) ~ 0.1) and find star formation
rates of a few tens of Solar masses per year. We use our inferred masses to
determine a mean specific star formation rate for this sample of ~ $10^{-9}$
yr$^{-1}$, and compare this to the specific star formation rates in distant
Lyman break galaxies (LBGs), and in other low redshift populations. We conclude
that our sample's characteristics overlap significantly with those of the z~5
LBG population, making ours the first local analogue population well tuned to
match those high redshift galaxies. We consider implications for the origin and
evolution of early galaxies.
