Certain neutral polymeric adsorbents such as the polyacry-lates XAD-7 and XAD-8 were discovered to exhibit modest capacities for the loadiny of gold from alkaline cyanide solutions. The adsorption characteristics of these resins were examined as a function of pH, ionic strength, and temperature. The experimental results suggest that adsorption occurs via ion pair formation and that the adsorption process can be described by the Freundlich adsorption equation. Interestingly, the polyacrylate resins show excellent selectivity for gold with respect to many other cyanoan-ions.