Monitoring of acoustic emission (AE) activity was employed to characterize the initiation and progression of local failure processes during nanoindentation-induced fracture. Specimens of various brittle materials were loaded with a cube-corner indenter and AE activity was monitored during the entire loading and unloading event using an AE transducer mounted inside the specimen holder. As observed from the nanoindentation and AE response, there were fundamental differences in the fracture behavior of the various materials. Post-failure observations were used to identify particular features in the AE signal (amplitude, frequency, rise-time) that correspond to specific types of fracture events. Furthermore, analysis of the parametric and transient AE data was used to establish the crack-initiation threshold, crack-arrest threshold, and energy dissipation during failure. It was demonstrated that the monitoring of AE signals yields both qualitative and quantitative information regarding highly local failure events in brittle materials.