Background of study: Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is initial diagnostic tool to diagnose any swelling in major salivary glands and some minor salivary glands. Superficial location of salivary glands makes them most favorable target for FNAC. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the overall advantages of FANC as compared to formal biopsy with respect to hospitalization, cost-effectiveness, speed. Research Methodology: FNAC were carried out on 70 patients who were suffering from the salivary gland lesions from January-2000 to December-2001. Histopathological follow-up data were acquired in 30 cases. The study was carried out to observe the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of FNAC for salivary gland lesions in comparison with histopathology. Results: The male-to-female ratio was 1.5:1. Parotid gland was involved in 54.28%, submandibular gland in 44.28% and other minor salivary glands in 1.42% of patients. There were 54.27 % cases of non-neoplastic lesions and 45.31% cases of neoplastic lesions on biopsy. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of FNAC for malignant neoplastic lesions were 92.3%, 100%, 100%, and 93.3%, respectively, whereas for benign neoplastic lesions, they were 93.3%, 100%, 100 %, and 92.3%, respectively. Conclusion: Fine-needle aspiration cytology is a very useful diagnostic tool for superficial palpable tumors as salivary glands. It is the safe, simple, minimally invasive with low-cost routine office procedure. Delay in diagnosis with conventional histopathological method is overcome and this would allow us prompt further management.