The purpose of this inquiry is to determine how access and delay are distributed throughout the social structure. Data from a national survey of health care practices and costs confirm the conventional assumption, which is derived from a simple exchange model, that delay in doctors' offices is inversely related to income. However, the data also show that the poor, with or without appointments, wait longer at private offices as well as clinics, and that blacks wait longer than whites regardless of their income, appointment status, or source of care. Further analysis suggests that income and race are associated with waiting time because concentrations of family doctors are centered in the most affluent sectors of the white community. At the core of these concentrations, doctors compete for clients; at the periphery, clients compete for doctors. Separate race and income effects on delay exist because residential segregation by income and race are independently superimposed on one another. The ecological distribution of service units thus affects the time costs of their clientele. This fact is one manifestation of the overarching linkage between class, status, time, and space.