We present the first studies to explore the relationship between racial discrimination and cigarette smoking among Blacks. One hundred fifty-three (Study 1) and 300 (Study 2) Black adults completed a survey on their experiences with discrimination and their smoking. Logistic regressions revealed that racial discrimination was the best predictor of smoking among Blacks in both studies, and was a better predictor than status variables. Smoking prevalence rates for Blacks who experience frequent vs infrequent discrimination were 26.7% and 6.4%, respectively; and for those who experience racial discrimination as extremely vs mildly stressful, rates were 42.2% and 20.8%, respectively. We conclude that the stress of racial discrimination may play an important role in smoking among Blacks and, therefore, warrants further investigation.