A new photometric technique has been developed for detecting carbon and M stars in distant stellar systems, leading to isolation of carbon-star candidates in a number of Local-Group galaxies. One of the brighter candidates in NGC 6822 has been confirmed spectroscopically; at a distance of approximately 0.5 Mpc, it is the first truly extragalactic carbon star to be positively identified. The star has M(I) = about -5.7 mag, placing it near the upper-luminosity end of known carbon stars in the Magellanic Clouds.