A region of DNA 116 to 271 base-pairs upstream from the GAL7 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae activates transcription from a heterologous promoter and does so in either orientation, showing that the GAL7 upstream region contains an upstream activating sequence (UAS). The level of transcription obtained with two GAL7 UAS's in tandem was only 1.3 times that with one. Previous studies of the GAL1-GAL10 intergenic region were indicative of two binding sites for the GAL4 positive regulatory protein; we find that a single (synthetic) site is capable of gene activation. The level of transcription obtained with the intact GAL1-GAL10 UAS was five times that with the single site.