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SIGNATURE VINCENT P. CORTI
TITLE SECRETARY
November 26, 1997
To the Board of Directors of
Capital Income Builder, Inc.
In planning and performing our audit of the financial
statements of Capital Income Builder, Inc. (the "Fund")
for the year ended October 31, 1997, we considered its
internal control structure, including procedures for
safeguarding securities, in order to determine our
auditing procedures for the purposes of expressing our
opinion on the financial statements and to comply with
the requirements of Form N-SAR, and not to provide
assurance on the internal control structure.
The management of the Fund is responsible for
establishing and maintaining an internal control
structure. In fulfilling this responsibility, estimates
and judgments by management are required to assess the
expected benefits and related costs of internal control
structure policies and procedures. Two of the objectives
of an internal control structure are to provide
management with reasonable, but not absolute, assurance
that assets are appropriately safeguarded against loss
from unauthorized use or disposition and that
transactions are executed in accordance with management's
authorization and recorded properly to permit preparation
of financial statements in conformity with generally
accepted accounting principles.
Because of inherent limitations in any internal control
structure, errors or irregularities may occur and not be
detected. Also, projection of any evaluation of the
structure to future periods is subject to the risk that
it may become inadequate because of changes in conditions
or that the effectiveness of the design and operation may
deteriorate.
Our consideration of the internal control structure would
not necessarily disclose all matters in the internal
control structure that might be material weaknesses under
standards established by the American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants. A material weakness is a
condition in which the design or operation of the
specific internal control structure elements does not
reduce to a relatively low level the risk that errors or
irregularities in amounts that would be material in
relation to the financial statements being audited may
occur and not be detected within a timely period by
employees in the normal course of performing their
assigned functions. However, we noted no matters
involving the internal control structure, including
procedures for safeguarding securities, that we consider
to be material weaknesses as defined above as of October
31, 1997.
This report is intended solely for the information and
use of management and the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
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