Genetic diversity is used to identify different parents in plant breeding programs. In the present study, efforts were made to establish the correlation between genetic diversity and hybrid performance of single-cross hybrids. This was achieved by evaluating genetic diversity using a series of 15 RAPD primers among 10 inbred lines representing popcorn, a special type of corn used as a snack. From this analysis, I-07-35-7-3 and I-07-63-18-3 were found to be different parents. The single-cross hybrid developed from these inbred lines was inferior in performance to other hybrids developed from parents moderately different in all traits. The parents and 45 F1 hybrids were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The highest relative heterosis for grain yield was 99.16% and for blast expansion was 67.31%. Correlation coefficients (r) ranged from -0.472 to 0.294. Genetic diversity based on RAPD analysis showed a non-significant association or very low “r” value with heterosis, SCA, and hybrid performance per se. The results obtained in this study demonstrated that the exceptional behavior of moderately different parents is due to the non-additive genetic effect of the studied traits. Keywords: correlation, genetic diversity, heterosis, popcorn, single cross hybrid, specific combining ability Introduction Maize is among the three major cereal food crops grown and consumed worldwide. It originated in Mexico and Central America (Weatherwax, 1955). There are several special types of corn grown for commercial purposes, namely sweet corn, popcorn and baby corn. In addition to these corn pods, waxy corn and flour corn are used for domestic use. Among the different types of m...... half of paper ......(subgenus Potato). Theoretical and Applied Genetics 92: 532-540. Srdic, J., Miladenovic-Drinic, S., Pajic, Z., Filipovic, M. 2007. Characterization of maize inbred lines based on molecular markers, heterosis and pedigree data. Genetika 39:355-363.Turner, J.H. 1953. A study of heterosis in upland cotton, combining skill and inbreeding effects. Agronomy Journal 45: 487-490.Weatherwax, P. 1955. History and origin of corn. In G. F. Spragne (ed.). Maize and Maize Improvement, Academic Press. New York pp. 1-16.Williams, JGK, Kubelik, AR, Livak, KJ, Rafalski, JA, Tingey, SV 1990. DNA polymorphisms amplified by arbitrary primers are useful as genetic markers. Nucleic Acids Research 18: 6531-6535.Zidani, S., Ferchichi, A., Chaieb, M. 2005. Method of extracting genomic DNA from pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) leaves. African Journal of Biotechnology 4(8): 862-866.