Cell sorting and tritiated thymidine autoradiography were used to define the distribution of S phase cells in flow cytometric DNA histograms obtained from exponential mouse lymphoma cells (L5178Y). The numbers of labeled S phase cells, autoradiographically determined from cells sorted at 2-channel intervals in the G1/early S and late S/G2M regions of the histogram, were compared with the numbers of computed S phase cells in comparable 2-channel intervals as predicted by several computer algorithms used to extract cell cycle phase distributions from DNA histograms. Polynomial and multirectangle algorithms gave computed estimates of total %S in close agreement with the tritiated thymidine labeling index for the cell population, while multi-Gaussian algorithms underestimated %S. Interval autoradiographic and algorithm studies confirmed these results in that no significant differences were found between the autoradiographic S phase distribution and S phase distributions calculated by the polynomial and multirectangle models. However, S phase cells were significantly underestimated in G1/early S by a constrained multi-Gaussian model and in both G1/early S and late S/G2 by an unconstrained multi-Gaussian model. For the particular cell line (L5178Y), staining protocol (mithramycin following ethanol fixation) and instrumentation (Coulter TPS-2 cell sorter) used in this study, close agreement between computed %S and tritiated thymidine labeling index was found to be a reliable indicator of an algorithm's success in resolving S phase cells in the G1/S and S/G2 transition regions of the DNA histograms.