Information defining the renin-angiotension-aldosterone axis as a control system concurrently regulating salt balance and blood pressure has been applied to reexamine the role of renin in experimental and clinical forms of renovascular and renal hypertension, and thence to develop criteria for differentiating these entities. Experimentally, there are two models of renovascular hypertension; one is characterized by excess renin with reduced sodium (vasoconstrictor form) and the other by excess sodium with reduced renin (volume form). But with sodium depletion, the volume form converts to a vasoconstrictor form illustrating how the two factors coordinate to maintain blood pressure. In man, renovascular and renal hypertensions appear to be sustained by the same two mechanisms. Studies in man show that, in the absence of unilateral disease, the supine renal venous renin level in each kidney is consistently 24 percent higher than the peripheral level. Because of this constant relationship, the peripheral renin level is a measure of the renal secretion rate. Our studies indicate the curable unilateral renovascular hypertension is, in fact, renin-dependent vasoconstrictor hypertension. Three criteria, derived from four renin measurements, identify this situation: (1) Hypersecretion of renin is reflected by a high peripheral level when indexed against sodium excretion. (2) Lateralization of renin secretion with contralateral suppression rules out occult bilateral disease. It is indicated by V-A equal 0 from the uninvolved kidney. (3) (V-A)/A greater than 48 per cent from the ipsilateral kidney supports unilateralization. With data derived from patients with essential hypertension as a reference, the degree to which (V-A)/A is greater than 0.48 can be used to estimate the degree of renal ischemia, using Fick's principle. Corroborative evidence to support these three criteria can be developed from the blood pressure response to angiotensin blocking drugs or to antirenin therapy with propranolol. Clinical analysis validates these criteria to identify curable hypertension from unilateral renovascular or parenchymal disease. In patients with either occult or overt bilateral renal disease, the volume factor often predominates and is expressed by some suppression of plasma renin levels. Continued