This paper examines chemically selective displacement chromatography using affinity ranking plots, batch displacer screening experiments, column displacements, multi-component adsorption isotherms and spectroscopy. The affinity ranking plot indicated that the displacers, sucrose octasulfate (SOS) and tatrazine, should possess sufficient affinity to displace the proteins amyloglucosidase and apoferritin over a wide range of operating conditions. In addition, the plots indicated that the separation of these proteins by displacement chromatography would be extremely difficult. Further, the two proteins were shown to have very similar retention times under shallow linear gradient conditions. When batch displacement experiments were carried out, both tartrazine and SOS exhibited significant selectivity differences with respect to their ability to displace these two proteins, in contrast to the affinity ranking plot results. Column displacement experiments carried out with sucrose octasulfate agreed with the predictions of the affinity ranking plots, with both proteins being displaced but poorly resolved under several column displacement conditions. On the other hand, column displacement with tartrazine as the displacer resulted in the selective displacement and partial purification of apoferritin. Single- and multi-component isotherms of the proteins with or without the presence of displacers were determined and were used to help explain the selectivity reversals observed in the column and batch displacement experiments. In addition, fluorescence and CD spectra suggested that the displacers did not induce any structural changes to either of the proteins. The results in this paper indicate that multi-component adsorption behavior can be exploited for creating chemically selective displacement separations.