A simple theory is developed and applied to the polarizability (alpha), second hyperpolarizability (gamma), and the saturation lengths for nine polymeric materials. The theory is based on a valence bond view of the ground and excited states and considers the excited states as charge transfer excitons. It involves just two parameters which can be extracted from simple molecular orbital calculations and/or from experimental values of band gap and bandwidth. For the one system (oligothiophenes) with experimental data on saturation length, the predicted behavior of alpha and gamma with polymer length is in good agreement with experiment.