A gene is a stretch of DNA or RNA that determines a certain trait. Genes mutate and can take two or more alternative forms; an allele is one of these forms of a gene. For example, the gene for eye color has several variations (alleles) such as an allele for blue eye color or an allele for brown eyes.
An allele is found at a fixed spot on a chromosome. Chromosomes occur in pairs so organisms have two alleles for each gene — one allele in each chromosome in the pair. Since each chromosome in the pair comes from a different parent, organisms inherit one allele from each parent for each gene. The two alleles inherited from parents may be same (homozygous) or different (heterozygotes).