By using a combination of different feature sets extracted from input character patterns, we can improve the character recognition system performance. To reduce the dimensionality of the combined feature vector, we conduct the feature selection. This paper proposes a general framework for the feature combination and selection for character recognition problems. It also presents a specific design for the handwritten numeral recognition. Tn the design, DDD and AGD feature sets are extracted from handwritten numeral patterns, and a genetic algorithm is used for the feature selection. Experimental result showed a significant accuracy improvement by about 0.7% for the CENPARMI handwrittennumeral database.