A low-cost and facile method of purifying fullerenes to obtain a preparation enriched in a fullerene of selected molecular weight using activated carbon involves adding a fullarena mixture to the top end of a column comprising activated carbon, passing a solvent in which the selected molecular weight fullerene is soluble through the column, and recovering a fraction enriched in the selected molecular weight fullerene from the bottom end of the column. In addition to activated carbon, the column may further comprise silica gel, diatomaceous earth, or other materials which aid in column packing and eluent flow. The invention also provides for preparation of gram quantities of pure C.sub.60 and C.sub.70 fullerenes after a single column pass.