Design and characterization of a high-performance multi-acuity, multi-window dynamically reconfigurable vision (DRV) CMOS imager for real-time staring vision systems is presented. By carrying out on-focal-plane image preprocessing, the imager chip simultaneously supports low-resolution large field-of-view (FOV) scan and high-resolution narrow FOV tracking. As a result, data bottleneck inherent in full-frame operating mode is greatly eliminated, allowing high update rates (> 1 kHz), and simultaneous data capture from three partially overlapping reconfigurable regions of interest (ROIs). As a result, the imager enables a low-power staring vision system that concurrently meets the diverse and conflicting requirements of search, identify and track modes of imaging.