The SACY (Search for Associations Containing Young Stars) Catalog contains the results from a high-resolution optical spectroscopic survey aimed to search for nearby young associations and young stars among optical counterparts of ROSAT All-Sky Survey X-ray sources in the Southern Hemisphere. 1953 late-type (B-V>=0.6), potentially young, optical counterparts were selected out of a total of 9574 1RXS sources for follow-up observations. At least one high-resolution spectrum was obtained for each of 1511 targets. This paper is the first in a series presenting the results of the SACY survey in which the sample of X-ray selected stars and the supporting optical observations are described. The SACY sample is defined by Hipparcos (<a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/I/239">CDS Cat. <I/239></a>) and Tycho-2 (<a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/I/259">CDS Cat. <I/259></a>) stars within an error radius of 2.6 times the positional error of the ROSAT All-Sky Bright Source Catalogue (1RXS, <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/IX/10">CDS Cat. <IX/10></a>). The used cut-off (B-V=0.6), corresponding approximately to a G0 dwarf, is near the hottest stars where the strength of the LiI line can be used as an youth indicator. All Hipparcos stars having M_v < 2.0 have been excluded. The northern boundary limits of the survey are given in Table 1 of the reference paper. In addition to the 1511 stars observed at least once, 115 stars with data taken from the literature have been added in order to complement the sample. In addition to these 1626 stars in the SACY sample (sources with source number prefixes of 'S'), entries for 165 other observed stars (sources with source number prefixes of 'O') are also included in this table. Most of the spectroscopic observations (~70%) were performed with the FEROS spectrograph at the 1.5m/ESO telescope at La Silla between January 1999 and September 2002 (ON-ESO agreement and ESO program identification 67.C-0123). Two more runs (ESO program identifications 072.C-0393 and 077.C-0138) were carried out at the 2.2m/ESO telescope. Another set of data (~30%) was collected at the coude spectrograph attached to 1.60m telescope at the Observatorio rio do Pico dos Dias (OPD), LNA, Brazil. Some spectra are a re-analysis of the ones taken for the PDS program. A few observations were collected using the CORALIE attached to the Swiss Euler Telescope at La Silla. UBV(RI)c photometry for part of the sample was obtained using FOTRAP at the 0.60m Zeiss telescope of the OPD. When a star was not observed photometrically by the authors, they tried to obtain some useful photometric data from the Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues or in the available literature in the SIMBAD. For multiple stars, magnitudes and colors were corrected in order to take into account the presence of the companion(s). This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2007 based on the CDS table J/A+A/460/695, files table3.dat and table4.dat This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .