The occurrence of DNA repair in UV- (254 nm) and X-irradiated normal human diploid fibroblasts maintained in a quiescent, nondividing state using low serum (0.5%) medium was ascertained. Techniques that detect different steps of the excision repair process were used so that the extent of completion of repair at single sites could be determined. These included measuring the disappearance of pyrimidine dimers by chromatography, detecting repair synthesis by density-gradient and autoradiographic methods and detecting the rejoining of repaired regions and repair of x-ray-induced single-strand DNA breaks using alkaline sucrose gradients. Results show that dimer excision occurs and the subsequent steps of repair synthesis and ligation are completed. About 50% of the dimers formed by exposure to 20 J/m2 is excised in the initial 24-h post-UV period. DNA repair (unscheduled DNA synthesis) can be detected through a 5-d post-UV period. The fraction of damaged sites eventually repaired is not known. X-ray-induced single-strand DNA breaks are repaired rapidly.