Members of the Gossypium genus, as well as members of other important crop families, are limited in their regeneration from protoplast, callus or leaf tissues. This widespread problem restricts improvement which can be made by gene transfer to a few regenerable genotypes. A method which uses the preformed shoot meristem in transformation and subsequent regeneration of plants was proposed (Gould & Smith, 1988). In this report, we describe the protocols developed to regenerate plants from shoot apex explants of 19 cultivars of Gossypium hirsutum and from Pima S-6 of G. barbadense. The shoot meristem and subtending leaf primordia of seeds germinated 3 to 5 days is isolated, the meristem is exposed to the transformation vector and plants are directly regenerated from these tissues on hormone-free MS based medium. This method was developed to be used in transformation using either microprojectile of agrobacterium methods of gene transfer.