A selective method for the spectrophotometric determination of V in the presence of other refractory elements is proposed. It is based on the re-examination of its redox reaction with 2,2'-iminodibenzoic acid in H2SO4 medium (11.1-11.4 mol 1-1) in the presence of H3P04. Up to 1 mg of TiIV, Z P , NbV, Mow and Wvl do not interfere. V should be pre-oxidized in H2SO4 medium (S6.5 rnol 1-1) at room temperature with a 0.1% m/v solution of potassium permanganate, the excess of which is removed by adding successively 1 ml of a 10% m/v solution of urea and a few drops of a 0.1% solution of sodium nitrite. The molar absorptivity of this system was found to be 1.2 X 104 1 mol-1 cm-1 at 610 nm. The Lambert-Beer law is obeyed over the concentration range 0.4-2.0 pg ml-1 of V with the linear regression equation A = 0.0188C-0.0229 (C = pg of V per 25 ml) and correlation coefficient r = 0.9990. The standard deviation ( n = 10) and relative standard deviation at the level of 20 pg of V were found to be 0.88 pg and 4.4%, respectively. The versatility of the proposed method was demonstrated by incorporation of the preconcentration of V with N-benzoyl-N-phenylhydroxylamine as precipitant and MoV1 as carrier.