  We have identified a class of high-velocity clouds which are compact and
apparently isolated. The clouds are compact in that they have angular sizes
less than 2 degrees FWHM. They are isolated in that they are separated from
neighboring emission by expanses where no emission is seen to the detection
limit of the available data. Candidates for inclusion in this class were
extracted from the Leiden/Dwingeloo HI survey of Hartmann & Burton and from the
Wakker & van Woerden catalogue of high-velocity clouds. The candidates were
subject to independent confirmation using either the 25-meter telescope in
Dwingeloo or the 140-foot telescope in Green Bank. We argue that the resulting
list, even if incomplete, is sufficiently representative of the ensemble of
compact, isolated HVCs - CHVCs - that the characteristics of their disposition
on the sky, and of their kinematics, are revealing of some physical aspects of
the class. The CHVCs are in fact distributed quite uniformly across the sky. A
global search for the reference frame which minimizes the velocity dispersion
of the ensemble returns the Local Group Standard of Rest with high confidence.
The CHVCs are not stationary with respect to this reference frame but have a
mean infall velocity of 100 km/s. These properties are strongly suggestive of a
population which has as yet had little interaction with the more massive Local
Group members. At a typical distance of about 1 Mpc these objects would have
sizes of about 15 kpc and gas masses, M_HI, of a few times 10^7 M_Sun,
corresponding to those of (sub-)dwarf galaxies. (abridged)
