This paper describes two relatively simple methods for the microdetermination of urinary cadmium (U-Cd) and urinary nickel (U-Ni) using electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. Reduction of nonspecific absorption interferences was achieved by temperature programming and background correction using a deuterium arc lamp. Within-run CVs were less than 5% for both U-Cd and U-Ni. Day-to-day variation was less than 8.1% for U-Cd and less than 8.0% for U-Ni. The typical limit for detection was 0.08 micrograms/L for U-Cd and 0.1 micrograms/L for U-Ni. The methods described are useful for mass screening of low level exposure to Cd or Ni.