Expression of the human hsp70 gene is cell cycle regulated and is inducible by both serum and the adenovirus E1a protein (K. Milarski and R. Morimoto, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83:9517-9521, 1986; M. C. Simon, K. Kitchener, H.-T. Kao, E. Hickey, L. Weber, R. Voellmy, N. Heintz, and J. R. Nevins, Mol. Cell. Biol. 7:2884-2890, 1987; B. Wu, H. Hurst, N. Jones, and R. Morimoto, Mol. Cell. Biol. 6:2994-2999, 1986; B. Wu and R. Morimoto, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82:6070-6074, 1985). This regulated expression is predominantly controlled by the CCAAT element at position -70 relative to the transcriptional initiation site (G. Williams, T. McClanahan, and R. Morimoto, Mol. Cell. Biol. 9:2574-2587, 1989; B. Wu, H. Hurst, N. Jones, and R. Morimoto, Mol. Cell. Biol. 6:2994-2999, 1986). A corresponding CCAAT-binding factor (CBF) of 999 amino acids has recently been cloned and shown to stimulate transcription selectively from the hsp70 promoter in a CCAAT element-dependent manner (L. Lum, L. Sultzman, R. Kaufman, D. Linzer, and B. Wu, Mol. Cell. Biol. 10:6709-6717, 1990). We report here that the first 192 residues of CBF, when fused to the DNA-binding domain of the heterologous activator GAL-4, are necessary and sufficient to mediate E1a-dependent transcriptional activation. E1a and CBF exhibit complex formation in vitro, suggesting that an in vivo interaction between these proteins may be relevant to the well-characterized E1a-induced transcriptional activation of the hsp70 promoter.