The chromatographic properties of approximately 100 sterols, select steroids of plant origin (sapogenins and steroidal alkaloids) and triterpenoids has been evaluated in this laboratory by monitoring their elution characteristics in adsorption (gravity column and thin-layer methods with and without the addition of silver nitrates), gas and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The utility of each methodology to act in one or another chromatographic mode-separation, radio-chemical purification, quantitation and structural elucidation, is discussed. The importance of the tilt of the -OH group at C-3 as well as the polarity, size, an shape of the rest of the molecule as it effects the hydrogen-bonding ability of the -OH group is demonstrated through changes in chromatographic behavior that result from the step-wise introduction of double bonds, methyl, bromo, oxygen, nitrogen and cyclopropyl groups into 5 alpha-cholestanol. An independent aid in the structure identification and quantitation of the compounds was use of a multiple-wavelength diode array detector in which different wavelengths of the UV spectrum (200-400 nm) were simultaneously monitored following passage of the sample through a reversed-phase C18 column.