Scattering of laser radiation from ion‐acoustic waves in a plasma is investigated analytically and experimentally. The formulation predicts a coherent component of the scattered power on a largely incoherent background spectrum when the acoustic analog of Bragg’s law and Doppler shift conditions are satisfied. The experiment consists of a hybrid CO2laser system capable of either low power continuous wave or high power pulsed mode operation. A heterodyne light mixing scheme is used to detect the scattered power. The proportionality predicted by the theory is verified by scattering from externally excited acoustic and ion‐acoustic waves; continuous wave and pulsed modes in each case. Measurement of the ion‐acoustic dispersion relation by continuous wave scattering is also presented.