For an elliptic operator on a compact manifold acted on by a compact Lie group, the Atiyah-Segal-Singer fixed point formula expresses its equivariant index in terms of data on fixed point sets of group elements. This can for example be used to prove Weyl’s character formula. Using KK-theory, we extend the definition of the equivariant index to noncompact manifolds, and prove a generalisation of the Atiyah-Segal-Singer formula, for group elements with compact fixed point sets. In one example, this leads to a relation with characters of discrete series representations of semisimple Lie groups. If time permits, I will go into relations with another approach to equivariant index theory on noncompact manifolds, namely via deformations of Dirac operators. (This is joint work with Hang Wang in Adelaide.)