A novel and environmentally friendly analytical method is reported for total chromium determination and chromium speciation in water samples, whereby tungsten coil atomic emission spectrometry (WCAES) is combined with in situ ionic liquid formation dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (in situ IL-DLLME).A two stage multivariate optimization approach has been developed employing a Plackett-Burman design for screening and selection of the significant factor involved in the in situ IL-DLLME procedure, which was later optimized by means were 3 and 10 µg L -1 , respectively. This is a 233-fold improvement when 2 compared with chromium determination by WCAES without using preconcentration. The repeatability of the proposed method was evaluated at two different spiking levels (10 and 50 µg L -1 ) obtaining coefficients of variation of 11.4 and 3.6% (n=3), respectively. A certified reference material (SRM-1643e NIST) was analysed in order to determine the accuracy of the method for total chromium determination and 112.3% and 2.5 µg L -1 were the recovery (trueness) and standard deviation values, respectively. Tap, bottled mineral and natural mineral waters were analysed at 60 µg L -1 spiking level of total Cr content at two Cr(VI)/Cr(III) ratios, and relative recovery values were ranged between 88 and 112% showing that the matrix has a negligible effect. To our knowledge, this is the first time that combines in situ IL-DLLME and WCAES.