Twenty-four clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus collected from various geographic areas and four reference strains were studied by (i) agar diffusion with disks impregnated with 5 μg oxacillin and reading after incubation at 30°C for 24 hours, (ii) Southern hybridization with a probe specific for the mecA gene, and (iii) the BBL Crystal TM MRSA ID system. There was perfect correlation between the three methods: the BBL Crystal TM MRSA ID system detected methicillin resistance in the fifteen strains hybridizing with the mecA probe and classified as resistant by the oxacillin disk diffusion test; the thirteen remaining strains were susceptible by agar diffusion and by the BBL test and did not hybridize with the mecA probe. The BBL Crystal TM MRSA ID System, therefore, appears to be an accurate method for rapid detection of Staphylococcus aureus exhibiting homogeneous resistance to methicillin.