Receptivity and stability of a two-dimensional laminar wall jet is considered. The wall jet and the disturbance source examined in a direct numerical simulation by S. Wernz and H. F. Fasel (AIAA Paper 96-0079) are chosen for the analysis. The disturbances are introduced by blowing and suction through a slot in the wall. The disturbances of two frequencies (28 and 56 Hz) are considered. Because two eigenmodes may be unstable in the wall-jet flow, both of them are taken into account for each frequency. Therefore, the linear receptivity problem is solved for two pairs of eigenmodes, and their development and interaction downstream from the source are analyzed. The analysis allows one to explain the behavior of the fundamental and subharmonic disturbances observed in the numerical simulation. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.