1. Amino acid uptake was measured in resting cat submandibular glands with either a natural blood supply or perfused at constant flow with a Krebs-albumin solution. Following a bolus arterial injection of a 3H-labelled amino acid and D-[14C]mannitol (extracellular reference tracer), the venous effluent was immediately sampled sequentially. The maximal uptake, Umax, from the blood or perfusate was determined from the paired-tracer dilution curves using the expression: uptake % = (1 -- (3H/14C) X 100). 2. In glands with a natural blood supply, Umax values up to 46% were measured for short-chain (serine and alanine) and long-chain (valine, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, 1-amino-cyclopentane cyclopentane carboxylic acid, phenylalanine, tryptophan, tyrosine, histidine and glutamine) neutral amino acids. In contrast, Umax was negligible for amino acids of the imino-glycine group (proline and glycine) and the nonmetabolized amino acids, 2-aminoisobutyric acid (AIB) and methylaminoisobutyric acid (MeAIB). 3. In glands with a natural blood supply addition of an unlabelled amino acid to the tracer injectate reduced Umax for the test acid by up to 80%. The pattern of these interactions suggested the presence of two transport systems for neutral amino acids, one preferring short-chain and the other long-chain amino acids. 4. In glands perfused at constant flow rates with an amino acid-free Krebs-albumin solution high Umax values were measured: L-serine (66%), L-alanine (54%), L-leucine (43%), L-phenylalanine (42%) and L-tyrosine (51%). Only a low uptake was observed for L-proline (8%) and glycine (14%). There was no uptake of methylaminoisobutyric acid which confirms the result obtained in glands with an intact circulation. 5. Saturation of L-phenylalanine influx was observed in perfused glands as the perfusate concentration of unlabelled L-phenylalanine was increased from 0.5 to 20 mmol . 1-1. A Michaelis--Menten analysis based on a single entry system indicated an apparent Km of 6.4 +/- 0.8 mmol . 1-1 and a Vmax of 1719 +/- 94 nmol . min-1g.-1 6. Since the fenestrated capillaries in the salivary gland are readily permeable to the test amino acid and D-mannitol, it is most probable that the amino acid carriers are located in the basolateral side of the epithelium. 7. The use of a paired-tracer dilution technique to measure uptake in a single circulatory passage has enabled a detailed characterization of neutral amino acid transport in the salivary gland and has overcome the limitation of previous studies based on solute transfer from blood to saliva.