The compounds Sc6MTe2 (M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni) have been prepared by high-temperature solid-state techniques and their structures determined to be hexagonal P (6) over bar 2m (No. 189), Z = 1, a = 7.662(1) Angstrom, 7.6795(2) Angstrom, 7.6977(4) Angstrom, 7.7235(4) Angstrom and c = 3.9041(9) Angstrom, 3.8368(2) Angstrom, 3.7855(3) Angstrom, 3.7656(3) Angstrom for M = Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni, respectively. Crystal structures were refined for M = Fe and Ni, while M = Mn and Co were assigned as isostructural on the basis of powder diffraction data. The Sc6MTe2 compounds belong to a large family with the Zr6CoAl2-type structure, an ordered variant of the Fe2P structure. The structure contains confacial tricapped trigonal prisms of scandium centered alternately by the late transition metal or tellurium atoms. The Sc6MTe2 compounds are the electron-poorest examples of this structure type. Extended Huckel band calculations for M = Fe and Ni show that both compounds exhibit largely 1D metal-metal bonding and are predicted to be metallic.