To determine the number of women in need of family planning services in the Charlotte North Carolina area and the proportion of these women currently served by the present family planning clinic 1693 randomly selected households in low-income districts were surveyed. Interviews were obtained from women between 15 and 44 years of age in 94.3% of the eligible households resulting in 800 usable interviews on a broad variety of items including socioeconomic background sexual history and family planning practices. 63% of the sample were determined to be financially eligible for the countys family planning program because of their poor or near-poor status. The proportion of these poor was twice as great among nonwhites as whites. 18.7% of these eligible women were infertile or had been sterilized. Significantly more white women fell into this category than nonwhites (p less than .05). 32.5% of the eligible women were determined to be temporarily not in need of family planning services because they were sexually inactive using nonclinic contraception or were in some stages of pregnancy. Thus 48.8% of the eligible women were found to be currently in need and 34.2% were going unserved by the clinic. Significantly more nonwhite women were in need than whites (p less than .01). Of the 292 women not financially eligible for the countys program 12.7% were found to be infertile or sterilized and 42.5% temporarily not in need. Significantly more whites fell into this latter category than nonwhites (p less than .001) due to their more frequent use of nonclinic contraception. Significantly more nonwhites were sexually active and not using contraception in this group than whites (p less than .001). The poor and financially eligible respondents were significantly more sterile (p less than .05) less using nonclinic contraception (p less than .05) and more sexually active without contraception (p less than .05) than the financially ineligibley It is concluded that the greatest need for family planning in this area is among the nonwhite poor.