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The proportion of human peripheral blood CD8⁺ T cells that are CD57⁺ CD28^– is low at birth but increases with age and in individuals infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). These CD57⁺ CD28^– CD8⁺ T cells contain large oligoclonal T‐cell expansions whose antigen specificity is unknown. We identified clonal expansions of virus‐specific memory cytotoxic T‐lymphocyte precursors (CTLp) in both healthy carriers of HCMV and in asymptomatic HIV‐infected subjects. In each subject, from the T‐cell receptor (TCR) β‐chain hypervariable sequence of each immunodominant CTL clone, we designed complementary oligonucleotide probes to quantify the size and phenotypic segregation of individual virus‐specific CTL clones in highly purified populations of peripheral blood CD8⁺ T cells. We found large clonal expansions of virus‐specific CTL clonotypes in CD57 …