The spacer thickness dependence of the interlayer magnetic coupling (IMC) between Gd and Fe layers separated by Al spacers has been studied. Magnetization measurement and X-ray magnetic circular dicroism (XMCD) spectroscopy at the Gd-L3 edge have been carried out on sputtered Fe (20Å)/Al (RÅ)/Gd (40Å) multilayer films (MLFs) for R = 0, 5, 10, and 100 and on some reference films. Experimental data at low magnetic fields below 1 kOe are carefully investigated. A simple theoretical model is introduced to evaluate the strength of IMC. The energy of IMC is represented by the term JM _Fe · M _Gd, in which M _Fe and M _Gd denote the average overall magnetic moments of Fe and Gd layers, respectively. It is found that J, which is evaluated from the magnetization curves and the Gd-XMCD signals, is 370 × 10 ⁴ Oe-cm ²/emu for MLF of R = 0, and can be reduced by one order of magnitude when R is changed from 0 to 10. Most of characteristic features of the experimental data are ascribed to the varing magnetization of Gd layers. It is found that 40Å Gd layers, which are paramagnetic at 5K when isolated using 100Å Al spacers, show magnetic hysteresis when sandwiched between Fe layers. © 2010 The Physical Society of Japan.