The separation of anionic, cationic, and neutral drugs in microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC) was studied. The concentration of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS; surfactant) and 2-propanol (organic solvent) was varied in a three-level full factorial design. 29 different model substances were chosen with different hydrophobicities and charges (neutral, positive, and negative). The models were calculated by means of multiple linear regression (MLR). The compounds were divided into five different subgroups, and different strategies for optimization of the separation within each group were investigated. The optimization was done by maximizing the selectivity using response surface plots in MODDE, by calculation of different chromatographic functions, and by using the software DryLab(TM). For all the different groups, MODDE, almost all chromatographic functions and DryLab(TM) gave approximately the same settings of the factors for optimum separation. Attempts were made to fit descriptors of the compounds to the retention data from the three-level full factorial design by means of partial least squares projection to latent structures (PLS). Between 86 and 89% of all predictions of migration times were acceptable (80-120% of the observed value).