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The infiltration of leukocytes into the central nervous system (CNS) is a common feature of many neuroinflammatory diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and also occurs during certain microbial infections such as by West Nile Virus. Here, we describe a method to isolate leukocytes from the spinal cords of mice. This method can be used for the characterization of leukocyte populations that infiltrate the spinal cord, and to perform functional studies with the isolated cells. The CNS of naive mice is infiltrated by very low numbers of leukocytes, however, upon inflammation increased numbers of mononuclear cells traffic to the CNS. The number of leukocytes that can be isolated roughly correlates with the degree of inflammation.