This paper investigates the subsurface stress field induced by a rigid cylinder rolling over a functionally graded coating-substrate system. The Fourier transform is employed to extract the stress components within the graded coating and the homogeneous substrate. The distributions of the stresses are given through the depth and along the coating-substrate interface. The contour plots of normalized Von Mises stresses are provided as well. The results indicate that continuous variation of the shear modulus substantially reduces the difference between the in-plane stresses along the interface. Also, the softening coating leads to the minimum value of the stress concentration near the contact surface. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.