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Spotlighting is a technique for showing discrete thresholds based on the values of a measure. For instance, you might want to color-code sales so that those over 10,000 appear green and those below 10,000 appear red. A spotlighting calculation is just a special case of a calculation that results in a discrete measure. A discrete measure is a calculation that is a dependent variable (and therefore a measure), but which results in a discrete result (as opposed to a continuous result). Thus the name discrete measure. Here is an example:

The formula in this example defines a discrete measure named Sales Spotlight. Discrete measures always appear with a blue abc icon in the Data pane. Sales Spotlight is classified as a measure in Tableau because it is a function of another measure; it is discrete because it produces discrete values (“Good” and “Bad”). Here is an example of this categorical measure in use:

Here, Sales Spotlight is on Color in the Marks card. It appears with the AGG prefix because it is an aggregate calculation. Values above 10,000 and below 10,000 are assigned different colors.