[ale] can't make zImage

[rebus at mindspring.com (Jim Philips)]

I am running Redhat 5.0 and kernel 2.0.31. The kernel compiles cleanly,
but whenever I go to make an image for lilo or for a disk, I get the
following message:

as86 -0 -a -o bootsect.o bootsect.s
make [1]:as86:Command not found
make [1]:***[bootsect.o] Error 127
make [1]:Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-2.0.31/arch/i386/boot
make [zlilo] Error 2

Any clues on how to get over this? I have never been unable to make an
image after a clean compile.