The ISAC radioactive beam facility under construction at TRIUMF includes a 500 MeV proton beam(I⩽100&mgr;A)impinging on a thick target, an on-line source, a mass-separator, an accelerator complex, and experimental areas. The accelerator chain includes a 35 MHz RF Quadrupole (RFQ) to accelerate beams ofA/q⩽30from 2 keV/u to 150 keV/u and a post-stripper, 105 MHz variable energy drift tube linac (DTL) to accelerate ions of3⩽A/q⩽6to a final energy from 0.15 to 1.5 MeV/u. The design concept and present status of the ISAC linear accelerator complex will be summarized. In particular, first rf and beam tests with the RFQ and the status of fabrication and testing of DTL components will be reported. ©1999 American Institute of Physics.