Lycopene, a lipophilic antioxidant, plays a crucial role in biological systems. It may play an important role in human biological systems by providing protection against cardiovascular disease and some cancers and by boosting the immune system. The oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) has been validated as an index of antioxidant activity for many hydrophilic antioxidants but not for lycopene. This study validates the ORAC assay for different concentrations of lycopene in the presence of β-cyclodextrin, a water-solubility enhancer. Lyc-O-Mato 6% extract was used as a source of lycopene for these experiments. Lycopene was extracted according to a standard spectrophotometric assay procedure in the presence of β-cyclodextrin at concentrations of 0, 0.4, 0.8, and 1.6%, and the antioxidant activity of lycopene was measured with the ORAC assay. Experiments were conducted in quadruplicate and statistical pooled correlations analyzed. Statistical analysis showed a very high correlation (R  2 = 0.99) between ORAC and ascorbic acid concentrations, validating this method. Lycopene concentration correlated poorly with ORAC (R  2 = 0.33) in the absence of β-cyclodextrin. Correlations improved with increasing levels of β-cyclodextrin (R  2 = 0.58 and 0.91 for 0.4 and 0.8% β-cyclodextrin, respectively). A very high β-cyclodextrin concentration (1.6%) decreased the correlation between ORAC and lycopene concentration. Inclusion of β-cyclodextrin in the ORAC assay improves correlation between ORAC and lycopene concentration, thus expanding the scope of the ORAC assay to include an additional fat-soluble antioxidant. Keywords: ORAC; lycopene; lipophilic antioxidants; β-cyclodextrin