We show that solution-state cross-polarization in nuclear magnetic resonance is a valuable technique for the selective observation of scalar-coupled quadrupolar nuclei in anisotropic phases. Numerical simulations show that coherence transfer remains efficient provided the quadrupolar splitting is smaller than the scalar-coupling constant. The method is applied to a mixture of beryllium fluoride complexes. Despite severe overlap in the Be-9 spectrum these results clearly demonstrate a quadrupolar splitting for BeF3- whereas no such splitting is resolved for BeF42-. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.