Protein synthesis initiation factors prepared from rabbit reticulocyte and mouse ascites ribosomes were tested for the ability to crosslink to the 5' cap of mRNA. Crosslinking of one polypeptide of apparent molecular weight 24,000 was inhibited by the cap analogs, m7GMP and m7GDP, indicating a specific interaction with the cap. Although specific crosslinking of the 24,000 molecular weight polypeptide was found with eukaryotic initiation factor 3 and to a lesser extent with initiation factor 4B, both of these factors contained less than stoichiometric amounts of this polypeptide. The crosslinking method provides a highly sensitive and specific assay for cap-binding proteins and should facilitate their purification for functional studies.