Fenoldopam, a selective agonist at peripheral dopaminergic (DA-1) receptors, is administered as a racemic mixture and, consequently, an indirect stereospecific high-performance liquid chromatographic assay was developed to study the disposition of the individual enantiomers in human subjects. Fenoldopam enantiomers were extracted from alkalinized plasma into ethyl acetate prior to precolumn derivatization with the chiral reagent 2,3,4,6-tetra-O-acetyl-beta-D-glucopyranosyl isothiocyanate (GITC). The resulting diastereomers were separated on a reversed-phase butylsilica column and determined using triple-electrode coulometric detection. The limits of determination and detection for the S- and R-enantiomers of fenoldopam were 0.5 and 0.25 ng/ml, respectively. A linear response was observed for (S)- and (R)-fenoldopam concentrations ranging from 0.5 to 50 ng/ml in plasma. The intra-day relative standard deviations (R.S.D.s) for the plasma assay at nominal concentrations of 0.5, 5 and 50 ng/ml were 17.4, 5.2 and 6.9%, respectively, for (S)-fenoldopam and 9.9, 6.2 and 7.4%, respectively, for (R)-fenoldopam. The inter-day R.S.D.s of the method at these concentrations were 9.3, 7.7 and 7.4%, respectively, for (S)-fenoldopam and 9.5, 1.9 and 7.3%, respectively, for (R)-fenoldopam. The mean accuracy of the method at concentrations of 0.5, 5 and 50 ng/ml in plasma was found to be 106.4, 111.8 and 108.9%, respectively, for (S)-fenoldopam and 116.2, 104.2 and 111.2%, respectively, for (R)-fenoldopam. The assay developed was sufficiently sensitive, accurate and precise to support pharmacokinetic studies in human subjects.