Two simple, sensitive and economical spectrophotometric methods have been developed for the determination of nicorandil in drug formulations and biological fluids. Method A is based on the reaction of the drug with brucine-sulphanilic acid reagent in sulphuric acid medium producing a yellow-coloured product, which absorbs maximally at 410 nm. Method B depends on the formation of the intensely blue-coloured product which results due to the interaction of an electrophilic intermediate of 3-methyl-2-benzothiazolinone hydrazone hydrochloride (MBTH) with oxidized product of 4-(methyl amino) phenol sulphate (metol) in the presence of nicorandil as an oxidizing agent in sulphuric acid medium. The coloured product shows absorbance maximum at 560 nm. Under the optimized experimental conditions, Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range of 2.5-35.0 and 0.40-2.2 microg ml(-1) for Methods A and B, respectively. Both the methods have been successfully applied to the determination of nicorandil in drug formulations and biological fluids. The results are validated statistically and through recovery studies. In order to establish the bias and the performance of the proposed methods, the point and interval hypothesis tests have been performed. The experimental true bias of all samples is smaller than +/-2%.