The normalized Reynolds (NR-) stress is a symmetric, non-negative, dyadic-valued operator. An analysis of the hydrodynamic equation governing velocity fluctuations of a constant property Newtonian fluid shows that this operator is related to a prestress operator that is also symmetric and non-negative. The prestress operator accounts for local spatial changes in the fluctuating pressure and in the fluctuating instantaneous Reynolds stress. The Cayley-Hamilton theorem from linear algebra is used to complete the closure with a non-negative mapping of the normalized Reynolds stress into the prestress. The non-negative mapping between the prestress operator and the Reynolds stress depends on a scalar-valued turbulent transport time related to the relaxation of a Green's function associated with a convective-viscous parabolic differential operator and the relaxation of a two-point, space-time correlation related to turbulent velocity fluctuations. The preclosure equation also depends on a kinematic operator related to the average velocity gradient and a rotational operator related to the angular velocity of the frame. The resulting universal realizable anisotropic prestress (URAPS-) closure is realizable for all non-rotating and rotating turbulent flows, provided the complementary transport equations for the turbulent kinetic energy and the turbulent dissipation are formulated to yield non-negative solutions. Experimental data and DNS results previously reported in the literature for non-rotating homogeneous simple shear and for non-rotating and rotating homogeneous decay are used to determine the closure constants. For rotating homogeneous simple shear, the URAPS-closure predicts the existence of self-similar states for finite positive and negative rotation numbers. The URAPS-closure for the NR-stress predicts anisotropic states consistent with expected behavior. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.