The effect of additional virulence (vii) genes and size of plasmid T-DNA in Agrobacterium tumefaciens was investigated for their impact on transformation efficiency. Transformation efficiency in tobacco, cotton, and rice was increased when the T-DNA was 4.3 kb compared to 8.4 kb in size. However, when additional vir-G, virGN54D, virE, or virE/virG plasmids were included with the 8.4-kb T-DNA, transformation frequencies in all cases were increased over that of the shorter T-DNA without additional vir plasmids. The use of virE, virG or virGN54D copies enhanced transformation efficiency; however, the most significant increase of transformation efficiency in all three plant species was observed when the virE/virG plasmid was used for infection. The virE/vir-G plasmid dramatically enhanced the efficiency of Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer; moreover, this plasmid appears to have broad efficiency since it was consistently effective on two different dicotyledon species as well as a monocotyledon species.