Since little is known about chromosomal locations harboring type 2 diabetes-susceptibility genes, we conducted a genomewide scan for such genes in a Mexican American population. We used data from 27 low-income extended Mexican American pedigrees consisting of 440 individuals for whom genotypic data are available for 379 markers. We used a variance-components technique to conduct multipoint linkage analyses for two phenotypes: type 2 diabetes (a discrete trait) and age at onset of diabetes (a truncated quantitative trait). For the multipoint analyses, a subset of 295 markers was selected on the basis of optimal spacing and informativeness. We found significant evidence that a susceptibility locus near the marker D10S587 on chromosome 10q influences age at onset of diabetes (LOD score 3.75) and is also linked with type 2 diabetes itself (LOD score 2.88). This susceptibility locus explains 63.8%+/-9.9% (P=. 000016) of the total phenotypic variation in age at onset of diabetes and 65.7%+/-10.9% (P=.000135) of the total variation in liability to type 2 diabetes. Weaker evidence was found for linkage of diabetes and of age at onset to regions on chromosomes 3p, 4q, and 9p. In conclusion, our strongest evidence for linkage to both age at onset of diabetes and type 2 diabetes itself in the Mexican American population was for a region on chromosome 10q.