To determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in fecal E. coli and to investigate possible associations between antibiotic resistance and other plasmid-mediated virulence properties, antibiotic disk susceptibility tests for nine antibiotics were done on 141 strains of E. coli isolated from diarrheal children and well controls. Eighty two percent of the test strains were resistant to one or more antibiotics. Antibiotics to which the test strains were most resistant in descending order were ampicillin (85%), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazol (60%), and cephalothin (55%). Seventy nine percent of these resistant strains were resistant to two or more antibiotics. All 141 test strains were sorted into enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC), enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), enteroadherent E. coli (EAEC) and non-pathogenic E. coli and the percentages of strains resistant to multiple antibiotics were compared. Among ETEC regardless of its source, multiple drug resistance was more frequent in strains producing heatstable enterotoxin (ST) only than in strains producing only heat-labile enterotoxin (LT) or both. In EAEC, multiple resistance was more frequently associated with strains isolated from diarrheal patients than with those from well controls. The major antibiotic resistance patterns possessed by multiple resistant enteropathogenic strains were $SXT^R$ $AM^R$, $CR^R$, and $SXT^R$ $AM^R$ $CR^R$. Of 28 ST- producing $SXT^R$ ETEC, 26(96%) were also resistant to ampicillin and 17 (61%) were resistant to cephalothin. The similar pattern was observed in EAEC and EPEC as well. This study has important implications for the treatment of E. coli diarrhea with antibiotics because it is possible that dissemination of virulence could occur under the force of selective antibiotic pressure. In addition, this study suggests that the in vivo efficacy of SXT in treating diarrheal illness be reevaluated.