The authors introduce and study the class of groups graded by root systems. They prove that if is an irreducible classical root system of rank and is a group graded by , then under certain natural conditions on the grading, the union of the root subgroups is a Kazhdan subset of . As the main application of this theorem the authors prove that for any reduced irreducible classical root system of rank and a finitely generated commutative ring with , the Steinberg group and the elementary Chevalley group have property . They also show that there exists a group with property which maps onto all finite simple groups of Lie type and rank , thereby providing a “unified” proof of expansion in these groups.