Data from a shipborne acoustic profiling device have been combined with conductivity, temperature, depth/O2 sections across the Gulf Stream to form estimates of the absolute flow fields. The procedure for the combination was a form of inverse method. The results suggest that at the time of the observations (June 1982) the net Gulf Stream transport off Hatteras was 107 ¿ 11 Sv and that across a section near 72.5¿W it had increased to 125 ¿ 6 Sv (subject to further uncertainty from the definition of the stream). The transport of the deep western boundary current was 9 ¿ 3 Sv. These and other transport estimates are plausibly close to previous calculations, but we do not claim that they represent the temporal mean. For comparison purposes we have done an inversion using the hydrographic/O2 data alone as in previously published results and obtained qualitative agreement with the combined inversion. Inversion of the acoustic measurements alone, when corrected for instrument biases, leaves unacceptably large mass transport residuals in the deep water. Our conclusion is that the inversion of the combined data sets produces results much improved over those from using either acoustic or hydrographic/chemical constraints in isolation. The procedures are close analogues to those which can be used with satellite altimeters and are a procedure for obtaining very accurate geoid slope measurements.