Because the initial realization that T cells comprised a discrete lymphocyte class, there has been a great deal of experimental work directed toward an analysis of the nature of the antigen receptor on T cells and, concomitantly, toward an assessment of the comparative specificity of T and B cells. Perhaps a major advance in understanding the molecular nature of the antigen receptor on T cells has come from studies demonstrating the expression, on the surface of specific T cells, of idiotypie determinants (immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region gene products [Vn]) 1 which are shared with the corresponding antibody (1-3). Although from such observations it might be anticipated that T cells and antibody would have comparable degrees of specificity for antigen, analyses of T-cell specificity have not necessarily fulfilled this expectation (reviewed in reference 4).A major limitation in many analyses of T-cell specificity has been the need to rely on ancillary T-cell activities, i.e., the capacity of T cells to help or suppress humoral responses or exhibit delayed-type hypersensitivity manifestations in order to assess Tcell recognition of antigen. This limitation would appear to be less severe in the case ofcytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses as antigen recognition by CTLs is directly measured by their capacity to lyse target cells expressing the appropriate antigen (5). Thus an analysis of the fine specificity of CTL recognition could provide useful information on the comparative specificities of T and B cells.Studies on the CTL response to conventional (i.e., non major histocompatibility complex [MHC] encoded) antigen have already yielded some information with regard to CTL specificity. For example, virus-specific CTLs readily distinguish target cells infected with unrelated viruses (6). Furthermore, more recent evidence along these lines suggests that distinct viral antigens are specifically recognized by CTLs (7-1 1). Perhaps more detailed information on CTL specificity has come from the analysis of the CTL response to hapten-modified cells (12)(13)(14)(15). Overall, these studies have demonstrated a high degree of specificity in CTL recognition of hapten-modified cell surfaces; however, it is not clear from these studies whether hapten per se is exclusively