Rice xa5 gene provides recessive, race-specific resistance to bacterial blight disease caused by the pathogen Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae and has great value for research and breeding. In an effort to clone xa5, an F2 population of 4892 individuals was developed from the xa5 near isogenic lines, IR24 and IRBB5. A fine mapping procedure was conducted and tightly linked RFLP markers were used to screen a BAC library of IRBB56, a resistant rice line containing the xa5 gene. A 213 kb contig covering the xa5 locus was constructed. According to the sequences from the International Rice Genome Sequening Project (IRGSP), the Chinese Superhybrid Rice Genome Project (SRGP) and some sub-clones of the contig, twelve SSLP and CAPS markers were developed for fine mapping. The xa5 gene was mapped to a 0.3 cM interval between markers K5 and T4, which spanned an interval of approximately 24 kb, co-segregating with marker T2. Sequence analysis of the 24 kb region revealed that an ABC transporter and a basal transcription factor (TFIIa) were potential candidates for the xa5 resistance gene product. The molecular mechanism by which the xa5 gene provides recessive, race-specific resistance to bacterial blight will be elucidated by the functional tests of the 24 kb DNA and the candidate genes.