Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria is the causal agent of leaf spot disease on pepper and tomato. On non-host plants, such as bean, soybean, cowpea, alfalfa, and cotton, X. campestris pv. vesicatoria is unable to cause disease, inducing instead a hypersensitive resistance response (HR). Since avirulence genes from X. campestris pv. vesicatoria specifically induce HR in several pepper cultivars, we investigated whether there were avirulence genes governing induction of resistance in non-host species. We report on the molecular cloning and characterization of a non-host avirulence gene from X. campestris pv. vesicatoria. A cosmid clone isolated from a library of DNA from X. campestris pv. vesicatoria tomato race 1 converted X. campestris pv. phaseoli to avirulence by inducing HR on the bean cultivar Sprite, but not on Bush Blue Lake. The HR-inducing activity was localized to a 2.1-kilobase Pst I fragment of DNA, designated avrRxv. In addition, we demonstrate that avrRxv inhibited disease production by several X. campestris pathovars on their normally susceptible hosts: glycines on soybean, vignicola on cowpea, alfalfae on alfalfa, holcicola on corn, and malvacearum on cotton. The HR resistance in bean induced by avrRxv segregated as a single incompletely dominant gene, designated Rxv. These results indicate that the avirulence gene avrRxv and the resistance gene Rxv partially control the outcome of the interaction between X. campestris pv. vesicatoria and the non-host bean.