 Schizosaccharomyces pombe  cells initiate a sexual differentiation program, which comprises meiosis and spore formation, on nitrogen starvation. This protocol describes a simple procedure to induce meiosis and sporulation semisynchronously in heterozygous diploid  S. pombe  cells. The procedure is appropriate for a variety of applications, including fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and northern and western blotting. Zygotic meiosis can also be induced by the same procedure, although less synchronously.