Guanosine 3',5'-monophosphate-dependent protein kinase (cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase) and adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate-dependent protein kinase (cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase) exhibited a high degree of cyclic nucleotide specificity when hormone-sensitive triacylglycerol lipase, phosphorylase kinase, and cardiac troponin were used as substrates. The concentration of cyclic GMP required to activate half-maximally cyclic dependent protein kinase was 1000- to 100-fold less than that of cyclic AMP with these substrates. The opposite was true with cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase where 1000- to 100-fold less cyclic AMP than cyclic GMP was required for half-maximal enzyme activation. This contrasts with the lower degree of cyclic nucleotide specificity of cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase of 25-fold when histone H2b was used as a substrate for phosphorylation. Cyclic IMP resembled cyclic AMP in effectiveness in stimulating cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase but was intermediate between cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP in stimulating cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase. The effect of cyclic IMP on cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase was confirmed in studies of autophosphorylation of cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase where both cyclic AMP and cyclic IMP enhanced autophosphorylation. The high degree of cyclic nucleotide specificity observed suggests that cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP activate only their specific kinase and that crossover to the opposite kinase is unlikely to occur at reported cellular concentrations of cyclic nucleotides.