The identification of mouse models for the various forms of human neurosensory non-syndromic recessive deafness would constitute a major advance in the study of human deafness. Here we describe the localization of a human gene for neurosensory, nonsyndromic recessive deafness (NSRD2) to chromosome 11q13.5 by linkage analysis of a highly consanguineous family. A maximum lod score of 10.63 (theta = 0.018) was obtained for the microsatellite marker D11S527. Homozygosity mapping refined the localization of NSRD2 to a 6 cM interval also containing the olfactory marker protein (OMP) gene. The murine homologue of OMP is tightly linked to the autosomal recessive deafness gene sh-1. These results, and clinical data, suggest that NSRD2 is the human homologue of the mouse sh-1 gene.