This looks like a pretty good solution. I will play with it.

CREATE TABLE dbo.Flags

(

position INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED CHECK (position BETWEEN -1 AND 15),

bit_value INT NOT NULL UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED,

CHECK (bit_value = POWER(2, position) OR (position = -1 AND bit_value = 0))

);

GO

-- Add 16 bits plus a placeholder to allow unset bits

INSERT dbo.Flags (position, bit_value)

SELECT TOP (16)

ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) - 1 AS position,

POWER(2, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) - 1) AS bit_value

FROM master.sys.columns

UNION ALL

SELECT -1, 0 -- for unset bits

GO