A system and method are disclosed for a user interface control that utilizes one or more graphical objects ("comets"), which can be operated solely by the eye gaze of a user. The disclosed system and method enables users to access and control, for example, computer displays without use of hands, voice or other forms of input. Each comet may be implemented as an animated graphic object that is mapped to one or more computer functions (a command set) by a computer or software application programmer. A computer-based system may create one or more comets on a display device and place them in motion. Eye tracking data may be collected over a period of time based on the detected point-of-gaze of a user's eye. If the user is determined to be visually tacking a particular comet, the comet will become selected and the computer or host system may execute the command set that has been mapped to the selected comet. The disclosed system and method may also be adapted to determine a user's point-of-interest based on the movement of an input device (such as a conventional mouse, trackball, data glove, etc.) and to select a comet based on a correspondence between the movement of the comet and the movement of the input device.