The dominant orogenic fabric in Proterozoic rocks of the southwestern U.S. includes a series of NE-striking shear zones that are commonly interpreted as suture zones across which blocks of juvenile crust were assembled to the southern margin of Laurentia. New structural and geochronological data from southwestern Colorado suggest that fabrics related to assembly of tectonostratigraphic terranes in this area strike northwest. The NW-striking foliations represent deformation at ca. 10-20 krn paleodepths (ca. 1.77-1.71 Ga), and are parallel to magnetic anomalies and to gradients in mantle velocity structure. The agreement between these data sets suggests that the NW-striking structures are important at lithospheric scale, extend to >I00 krn depth, and may record assembly of southwestern Colorado across NW-striking tectonic boundaries. Geochronologic data indicate that northwest (central Colorado)-and northeast (Cheyenne belt)-striking boundaries developed simultaneously during accretion of southwestern Laurentia between ca. 1.78-1.73 Ga. We propose that the Yavapai province at ca. 1.75 Ga may have involved a complex arcuate subduction system, with multiple arcs, analogous to that of the modern Banda Sea, in the Indonesia region.