Villa's second-half determination, inspired by substitutes Patrik Berger and Shaun Maloney, deservedly earned them a vital point to ease themselves away from the relegation area.
Earlier Everton, who boosted their European aspirations, had appeared to be well on course for victory following Joleon Lescott's first goal since his £6million move from Wolves last summer.
In many respects it was a familiar Villa display. They struggled in the early stages, went a goal down and were thereafter fighting to repair the damage.
Martin O'Neill surprisingly kept faith with the same team as that which put up such a disappointing performance against Liverpool in the previous home game and sadly there was no real improvement in the first half.
Stiliyan Petrov continued to struggle in midfield, while the attacking power of John Carew and Ashley Young was never a threat to a Toffees defence which had conceded only four goals in a recent eight-game spell.
With Andy Johnson always proving troublesome to Villa's defence, Everton generally looked the more positive as they took the game to the Midlanders.
All too often Villa found themselves over-stretched and a desperate tackle by Gavin McCann produced the free-kick which led to the Merseysiders taking a 15th minute lead.
Mikel Arteta's free-kick deep out on the left glanced off Gary Cahill to Lescott lurking at the far post to head in his first goal of the season and put Villa under increasing pressure.
James Vaughan emerged as a major threat to Villa as the young Birmingham-born forward repeatedly had the beating of the frustrated home defence with his swiftly executed moves.
Young, playing in his more accustomed striking role, was the only Villa player to pose a threat when his hastily struck shot following a tackle by Joseph Yobo went narrowly wide.
But Villa were fortunate not to concede a second goal when Vaughan, now enjoying the luxury of an injury-free spell, whistled a shot just wide with Thomas Sorensen well out of position.
Skipper Phil Neville repeated a similar blockbuster of a shot which was also just off-target to the relief of an increasingly agitated O'Neill.
This was also reflected in the play of McCann, who collected his tenth booking of the season and now faces a two-match ban.
He was replaced at the break by Berger and Villa suddenly found more attacking flair only for Carew to weakly waste three reasonable close-range chances to equalise.
Villa's leveller finally arrived in the 83rd minute when Tim Howard blocked Carew's close-range effort and Agbonlahor tapped home the loose ball.