Two percent of the residents of Bengkala, Bali, have profound, congenital, neurosensory, nonsyndromal deafness due to an autosomal recessive mutation at the DFNB3 locus. We have employed a direct genome-wide disequilibrium search strategy, allele-frequency-dependent homozygosity mapping (AHM), and an analysis of historical recombinants to map DFNB3 and position the locus relative to flanking markers. DFNB3 maps to chromosome 17, closest to D17S261, pRM7-GT and D17S805. In individuals homozygous for DFNB3, historical recombinant genotypes for the flanking markers, D17S122 and D17S783, place DFNB3 in a 5.3 cM interval of the pericentromeric region of chromosome 17 on a refined linkage map of 17p-17q12. Based on conserved synteny, the murine sh2 gene may be the homologue of DFNB3.