A general theory of Bender-Dunne orthogonal polynomials is proposed. I
t is shown that these polynomials can easily be constructed for any ex
plicitly tridiagonalizable Hamiltonians and are, in fact, the orthogon
al polynomials in a discrete variable which takes its values in the se
t of energy levels of the corresponding quantum model. The weight func
tions for Bender-Dunne polynomials are explicitly constructed.