It may be odd to "answer" your own question, but given the number of views this post has had, thought it would be useful to pass on what the IRS told me yesterday. The net of the conversation is that if you have no foreign income source for a given year, you can not carry forward any remaining foreign tax credits from previous year. Simply put, any unused credit is lost unless you have foreign income during the carry forward years (up to 10). Guess I better get another overseas assignment soon.......