The height of the overshoot of the action potential recorded from frog ventricles is markedly less sensitive to lowering the external sodium concentration than predicted by the sodium-hypothesis of excitation, and it is surprisingly sensitive to changes in the external calcium concentration. These observations are explained by a mechanism in which there is competition between sodium and calcium ions, in the excitable membrane, for anionic sites which control the inward current of sodium ions at the crest of the action potential.