Recently, it has been shown that mammalian transcription factor IIIC (TFIIIC) activity can be separated by anion exchange FPLC chromatography into two functional components (1), both of which are required for transcription of tRNA and the adenovirus VA RNA genes. Here we show that these two functional components, designated TFIIIC1 and TFIIIC2, can also be separated by sequence specific DNA affinity chromatography. These results confirm the observation that TFIIIC can be fractionated into two components, which are both required for transcription of VA I and tRNA genes in vitro. Thus in the mammalian reconstituted system, a minimum of three proteins, in addition to RNA polymerase III, are required for the transcription of the VA and tRNA genes in vitro. The DNA binding component, TFIIIC2, binds specifically to the 3' segment of the internal promoter (the B block), demonstrated by its ability to protect this region from digestion by DNase I. TFIIIC2 is the limiting, titratable component in the phosphocellulose C fraction required for the formation of a stable pre-initiation complex on the VAI RNA gene in vitro, as demonstrated with a template competition and rescue assay.