In cotton, the ability to produce embryogenic cells is genotype dependent with only a few genotypes known to be capable of regenerating plants from cell culture. Because of this limitation, most transgenic cultivars are produced by inserting the transgene into the highly embryogenic but obsolete cultivar, Coker 312, and then introduced into the desired cultivars through backcrossing. Therefore, a majority of the transgenic cultivars are closely related with one of their parents tracing back to Coker 312. This has not only exacerbated the narrow genetic base of cotton, but also remains a major obstacle for cotton transformation programs. Realizing the importance to expand the current panel of cotton varieties that is conducive to somatic embryogenesis, we have evaluated the elite breeding lines developed by the UGA cotton breeding program for somatic embryogenesis. The results showed that somatic embryogenic ability is present in several elite lines; the one with the greatest embryo production, GA98033, was later released as public germplasm line. GA 98033 has an acceptable fiber length and micronaire, superior strength and most importantly, outperformed many of the leading commercial cultivars, including many transgenics that are currently in production. Here, we report genetic transformation of a green fluorescent protein gene (GFP) into GA98033 via biolostic bombardment of embryonic callus. Our results show that it is feasible to use GA98033 as a donor parent for transgenic cotton cultivar development.