Wheat is one of the pivotal cereal due to its nutritious value and used all over the world as food for human. Drought is effecting grain yield up to 30-40% in wheat. The initial move towards improvement of drought tolerance in wheat is to screen existing germplasm. The experiment conducted in in wheat Research Institute Faisalabad in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. One hundred wheat genotypes assessed at seedling stage on physio-morphic traits. Wheat line 9860 had maintained root/shoot ratio, relative water contents and excised leaf water loss under 50% and 100% field capacity. Seven best performing wheat genotypes further evaluated for drought tolerance and grain yield in field with regular irrigation and drought. The physiological traits included excised leaf water loss, cell membrane thermostability, photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance and chlorophyll contents recorded at anthesis and yield related traits days to flowering, days to maturity, plant height, number of grains per plant, 1000-grain weight and grain yield per plant recorded at maturity indicated wheat genotype 9860 performed better in water deficit conditions and found drought tolerant. The selection criteria developed for identifying drought tolerant wheat genotypes is very efficient.