Multistep process for electroless plating of copper onto a non-conductive surface including the steps of: (1) laminating a rough copper sheet onto the non-conductive surface; (2) etching away all the copper; (3) conditioning the surface with multifunctional positively charged molecules derived from copolymers of polyacrylamide and functionally active tetraalkylammonium compounds in an diluted inorganic acid; (4) activating the conditioned surface preferably with stannous/palladium chloride particles; (5) treating the activated surface with deionized water and diluted HCl; (6) applying a photoresist layer to the surface and selectively exposing and developing the photoresist to produce a mask corresponding to the negative of the desired circuit pattern; and (7) plating copper using successively two baths differing in their oxygen and CN.sup.- concentration, where the foregoing steps are interspersed with washing steps.