beta-Galactosidase has been purified from rabbit brain by a procedure which gives substantially greater purification and yield than the previously reported method. The enzyme was solubilized in 4% aqueous butanol and purified by a procedure which included affinity chromatography on columns of concanavalin A - Sepharose (ConA-Sepharose) and aminophenylthiogalactoside Sepharose (APT galactoside-Sepharose). The activity was resolved by DEAE-Sepharose chromatography into two fractions; the first did not bind to the column and was eluted in the unbound fraction, while the second bound to the column and could be eluted with a salt gradient. The unbound and bound fractions were purified 7600-fold and 4900-fold, respectively, by the newly developed procedure. Both gave two closely migrating protein bands on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and the major contaminating protein was beta-hexosaminidase in each case. The enzyme in the unbound fraction had an isoelectric point (pI) of 6.7 and an apparent molecular weight by gel filtration of 114 000 +/- 10 000. The enzyme that bound to DEAE-Sepharose at pH 8.0 and comprised about 60% of the total acid beta-galactosidase activity of rabbit brain eluted from Sephacryl S-200 as a single peak with apparent molecular weight 140 000 +/- 10 000. The two fractions displayed similar relative specific activities towards the synthetic substrates and ganglioside GM1 and lactosyl ceramide. Neither enzyme hydrolyzed galactosyl ceramide. We have immunological evidence which suggests that the two fractions of beta-galactosidase are also structurally related.