This study was designed to determine the role of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) accumulation in systemic fat metabolism and to compare this in black and white women who differ in their manifestations of upper body obesity. Systemic glycerol and free fatty acid (FFA) turnover rates (rates of appearance, R_a) were measured in the basal state and during a pancreatic euglycemic clamp in nondiabetic, premenopausal, obese black and white women with a wide range of VAT accumulation. The slopes of the regression equations predicting basal and insulin-suppressed R_aGlycerol and R_aFFA from VAT area, age, and fat mass or fat-free mass did not significantly differ between black and white women. VAT area was the best predictor of the %-suppressed R_aGlycerol and R_aFFA during the pancreatic clamp (partial r = 0.76, P < 0.0001 and partial r = 0.60, P < 0.05, respectively). Basal R_aGlycerol, but not R_aFFA, was lower in black than in white women (P < 0.05). During the clamp, black women showed greater insulin suppression of R_aGlycerol than of R_aFFA (P < 0.0001) and greater insulin suppression of R_aGlycerol (P < 0.05) but similar suppression of R_aFFA compared with white women. These differences were independent of age, fat mass, or fat-free mass and were partly explained by a lower VAT in black women. Thus, in both races, VAT accumulation was associated with systemic resistance to the antilipolytic effect of insulin and, in obese black women, systemic lipolysis measured as glycerol turnover rate was more responsive to insulin suppression than were systemic FFA turnover rates.