Equal opportunity is widely regarded as a core normative ideal, though its implementation may be costly, making individual preferences far from obvious. In this paper, we study preferences for equality of opportunity using an incentivized laboratory experiment. Participants are randomly assigned a parental social status and make incentivized choices between alternative mobility regimes under three meritocracy conditions: effort is rewarded, irrelevant, or punished. Additionally, we include spectators, i.e., decision-makers with no personal stake, allowing us to single out intrinsic preferences for equality of opportunity. We find strong evidence that individuals value equality of opportunity per s\'e. Meritocracy significantly shapes these preferences, with support for mobility increasing when effort is rewarded and decreasing when it is punished. Self-interest also matters, as individuals from (dis)advantaged backgrounds are less (more) likely to favor mobility. Finally, beliefs about relative ability interact with meritocracy, particularly among individuals from middle-status backgrounds.