Dissociation constants (Kd) of host-guest complexes formed from P-cyclodextrin or "hydroxypropyl-P-cyclodextrin" (P-CD and Hp-P-CD) and several types of aliphatic guests (alcohols, alkanesulfonate ions, alkylamines, and a-amino acids), with up to eight carbons in a chain, are reported. These constants were determined by inhibition kinetics and by a spectrofluorometric displacement method based on competition with 1-anilino-8-naphthalenesulfonate ion as a fluorescent probe. The value of Kd for a particular amine is close to that for the corresponding alcohol. For linear alkyl derivatives, there are strong correlations between pK, (= -log Kd) and the chain length of the guest, with slopes around 0.5, complementing trends that were noted earlier. Furthermore, the strengths of binding of various aliphatic derivatives to P-CD and to Hp-P-CD are close, with Kd values for the two CDs usually being within a factor of 2 of each other. Overall, for the binding of over 50 alkyl-bearing derivatives, there is a good correlation of pKd for Hp-P-CD with that for P-CD, with unit slope. These observations imply that the binding of simple aliphatic guests to Hp-P-CD is not greatly influenced by the modification of the hydroxyl groups on the primary side of the P-CD cavity but this may not be true for longer aliphatic derivatives (>Cx) or for aromatics that penetrate farther into the CD cavity.