A compact, inexpensive atomic absorption spectrometer has been designed,constructed, and evaluated for the determination of Pb at the ug/Llevel. The new device is made feasible by the combination of a reliabletungsten coil atomizer, a miniature spectrometer/charge-coupled devicecombination mounted on a PC card, and a near-line background correctionmethod. The finished spectrometer can be powered by a normal 12 V carbattery, controlled with a laptop computer, and transported in anyautomobile. The overall dimensions of the original prototype system are19" x 8" x 3" (excluding the computer), and it has no moving parts. Thetotal estimated cost of the system, including the computer, is less than$6,000. The limit of detection for Pb is 20 pg (20 uL sample volume),the linear dynamic range is 2 orders of magnitude, and the precision forthe technique is 5% RSD at concentrations ten times greater than thedetection limit. The accuracy of the technique was determined usingNIST SRM #1579a "Powdered lead-based paint" containing 11.995 wt.% pb,and NIST SRM 955a "Lead in blood" containing 54.43 ug/dL PB. Theaccuracy for the paint sample was 95.1% (11.41 wt.% found) using thecalibration curve method (aqueous standards) and 97.2% (11.66 wt.%found) using the method of standard additions. The accuracy for theblood sample was 93.5% (50.9 ug/dL found) by the calibration curvemethod and 96.6% (56.3 ug/dL found) for the method of standardadditions. The limiting source of noise for the instrument is detectornoise, so the performance of the device can be improved by increasingthe optical throughput of the system.