Abstract: Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is grown in both sole and maize/bean intercrop systems in Ethiopia. Increasing bean yield partly requires developing cultivars that are adapted to both cropping systems. An experiment was carried out using 20 common bean genotypes in sole and maize/bean intercrop during 2012 main cropping season in Dilla, Ethiopia, to investigate genetic variances and broad-sense heritabilities and to estimate correlation coefficients for grain yield and yield related traits of bean in sole and maize/bean intercrop. Genetic variances for grain yield (g m-2) and pods plant-1 in sole crop were greater than that of intercrop. Broad-sense heritability for grain yield, pods plant-1, seeds pod-1 and 100-seed weight (g) was 0.91, 0.82, 0.71 and 0.90, respectively, for sole crop and its respective value for the intercrop was 0.79, 0.66, 0.67 and 0.91. Grain yield was positively correlated (p<0.05) with pods plant-1 (rp = 0.50, rg = 0.59) and 100-seed weight (rp = 0.47, rg = 0.52) in sole crop and pods plant-1 (rp = 0.64, rg = 0.80; p<0.01) in intercrop. This experiment suggests that grain yield per se or pods plant-1 would be used as a selection criterion to improve grain yield under both sole and intercropping systems. Moreover, genotypes DAB243 and DAB245 may be incorporated in the future breeding programs to develop high yielding cultivars in sole and intercropping systems.