You can use 'return' to break out of each() loops early.

Edit code and click me	Your Result (Some examples do not work in Google Chrome):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <style> div { width:40px; height:40px; margin:5px; float:left; border:2px blue solid; text-align:center; } span { color:red; } </style> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $("button").click(function () { $("div").each(function (index, domEle) { // domEle == this $(domEle).css("backgroundColor", "yellow"); if ($(this).is("#stop")) { $("span").text("Stopped at div index #" + index); return false; } }); }); }); </script> </head> <body> <button>Change colors</button> <span></span> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div id="stop">Stop here</div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> </body> </html>
Edit the code above and click to see the result	www.xhtml.co.il - Try it yourself