The effect of ethanol infusion on intestinal lipid absorption was studied in rats with a duodenal cannula. Rats were infused with ethanol overnight and ethanol was included in a trioleoylglycerol emulsion infusion given for 3 hr the next day. These rats were compared to control animals infused with glucose (isocalorically). The ethanol-infused rats had a greatly impaired lipid absorptive capacity. The monoacylglycerol and free fatty acid contents in the intestinal lumen in the ethanol-infused rats were 4- and 7-fold greater, respectively, than controls. The inhibition of absorption was not due to an effect of ethanol on lipolytic activity. The lipase content of the ethanol-infused rats was greater than controls and the separate infusion of monoacylglycerol and fatty acids demonstrated impaired absorption of these end products of lipolysis as compared to controls. To observe if these changes were due to an effect of ethanol on the enterocyte brush border membrane, the membrane lipids were analyzed. The phosphatidylcholine, lysophosphatidylcholine, and phosphatidylethanolanine content was reduced but not the neutral lipids, sphingomyelin, or phosphatidylserine. The uptake of fatty acid into intestinal rings was also shown to be impaired by ethanol infusion. Lastly, the specific activity of the neutral lipids remaining in the intestinal lumen after [3H]glycerol-labeled trioleoylglycerol-infusion was similar to controls even though the mass was much greater. It is concluded that ethanol impairs neutral lipid absorption due to an effect on the enterocyte brush border membrane and by increasing the efflux of low specific activity lipid from the enterocyte back out into the intestinal lumen. A potential pathway for this efflux is the recently described increased porosity of the apical junctional complex in response to ethanol infusion.