Abstract
Data on the nucleon spin structure suggests that the u- (and d-) quark distributions in the Λ hyperon may be polarized. If this correlation carries over into fragmentation, then the study of polarized Λ's in the current fragmentation region of deep inelastic lepton scattering will be a sensitive probe of the nucleon spin structure. Λ production by polarized electrons from unpolarized targets can search for this correlation. If it is significant, Λ production by unpolarized electrons from longitudinally and transversely polarized targets can probe the u-quark helicity and transversity distributions in the nucleon.