The amino acid sequence of rat ribosomal protein S6, the major phosphoprotein in the organelle, was deduced from the sequence of nucleotides in two recombinant cDNAs and confirmed from the sequence of amino acids in portions of the protein. Ribosomal protein S6 contains 249 amino acids and has a molecular weight of 28,683. The protein has 15 seryl residues; 7 are located in the carboxyl-terminal sequence of 15 amino acids and probably include most if not all of the residues that are phosphorylated. There are related repeated sequences of 10 amino acids each that occur at four separate positions in S6 and that are very basic. Rat S6 is homologous to Saccharomyces cerevisiae S10 (the extent of the identity is 75%) and most likely also to Schizosaccharomyces pombe S6.