A simple, low-priced chromatographic system to generate plasma lipoprotein profiles from total human plasma was tested with plasma from normolipidemic subjects and patients with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, hyper-α-lipoproteinemia, lipoprotein lipase deficiency, familial dysbetalipoproteinemia and familial lecithin-cholesterol-acyl-transferase defiency. The system appears to be a good alternative to more expensive high-pressure liquid chromatography systems, notably in lipoprotein laboratories already provided with equipment for column chromatography. If a microplate photometer and a computer is available in the la`boratory, the measurement of various lipids in 70–80 eluant fractions from the columns can be simplified.