We use a numerical approach to study the receptivity of the boundary layer flow over a slender body with a leading edge of finite radius of curvature to small streamwise velocity fluctuations of a given frequency. The body of interest is a parabola in order to exclude jumps in curvature, which are known sites of receptivity and which occur on elliptic leading edges matched to finite-thickness at plates. The infinitesimally thin flat plate is the limiting solution for the parabola as the nose radius of curvature goes to zero. The formulation of the problem allows the two-dimensional unsteady Navier–Stokes equations in stream function and vorticity form to be converted to two steady systems of equations describing the basic (nonlinear) flow and the perturbation (linear) flow. The results for the basic flow are in excellent agreement with those in the literature. As expected, the perturbation flow was found to be a combination of an unsteady Stokes flow and Orr–Sommerfeld modes. To separate these, the unsteady Stokes flow was solved separately and subtracted from the total perturbation flow. We found agreement with the streamwise wavelengths and locations of Branches I and II of the linear stability neutral growth curve for Tollmien–Schlichting waves. The results showed an increase in the leading-edge receptivity with decreasing nose radius, with the maximum occurring for an infinitely sharp flat plate. The receptivity coefficient was also found to increase with angle of attack. These results were in qualitative agreement with the asymptotic analysis of Hammerton & Kerschen (1992). Good quantitative agreement was also found with the recent numerical results of Fuciarelli (1997), and the experimental results of Saric, Wei & Rasmussen (1994).