Sean Myles and colleagues report on the genetic basis of blond hair in Solomon Islanders, a population that shows both the darkest skin pigmentation outside of Africa and the highest prevalence of blond hair (Science 336, 554, 2012). The authors conducted a genome-wide association study for hair color on 43 blond and 42 dark-haired individuals from the Solomon Islands. They selected the 10% of extremes for hair pigmentation distribution by spectrometric measurements, while controlling for age, sex and geography. They identified a single associated locus on chromosome 9p23, which includes the candidate gene TYRP1, which has previously been associated with variation in skin and hair pigmentation across several species. They genotyped a missense variant that showed the most significant association in 918 individuals from Solomon Island and estimate that this variant accounts for 46.4% of the variance in hair color. The associated allele is present at a frequency of 0.26 in Solomon Islanders, whereas, outside Oceania, this allele is rare or absent. Ancestry analysis using a worldwide reference sample confirmed the separation of Solomon Islanders from neighboring populations. The lack of systematic ancestry differences between blond and dark-haired individuals in the study suggests that the higher prevalence of blond hair was not attributable to recent gene flow from European populations.