We present a mechanism by which organisms with only a single photoreceptor, which have a monochromatic view of the world, can achieve color discrimination. An off-axis pupil and the principle of chromatic aberration (where different wavelengths come to focus at different distances behind a lens) can combine to provide "colorblind" animals with a way to distinguish colors. As a specific example, we constructed a computer model of the visual system of cephalopods (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish) that have a single unfiltered photoreceptor type. We compute a quantitative image quality budget for this visual system and show how chromatic blurring dominates the visual acuity in these animals in shallow water. We quantitatively show, through numerical simulations, how chromatic aberration can be exploited to obtain spectral information, especially through nonaxial pupils that are characteristic of coleoid cephalopods. We have also assessed the inherent ambiguity between range and color that is a consequence of the chromatic variation of best focus with wavelength. This proposed mechanism is consistent with the extensive suite of visual/behavioral and physiological data that has been obtained from cephalopod studies and offers a possible solution to the apparent paradox of vivid chromatic behaviors in color blind animals. Moreover, this proposed mechanism has potential applicability in organisms with limited photoreceptor complements, such as spiders and dolphins.spectral discrimination | chromatic aberration | color vision | pupil shape | cephalopod W e show in this paper that, under certain conditions, organisms can determine the spectral composition of objects, even with a single photoreceptor type. Through computational modeling, we show a mechanism that provides spectral information using an important relationship: the position of sharpest focus depends on the spectral peak of detected photons. Mapping out contrast vs. focal setting (accommodation) amounts to obtaining a coarse spectrum of objects in the field of view, much as a digital camera attains best focus by maximizing contrast vs. focal length. We note that a similar phenomenon has been advanced as a possible explanation for color percepts in red/green color-blind primates (1); however, primates have not evolved the off-axis pupil shape found in nearly all shallow water cephalopods that enhances this effect.The only other known mechanism of color discrimination in organisms involves determining the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation using differential comparisons between simultaneous neural signals arising from photoreceptor channels with differing spectral acceptances. Color vision using multiple classes of photoreceptors on a 2D retinal surface comes at a cost: reduced signal to noise ratio in low-light conditions and degraded angular resolution in each spectral channel. Thus, many lineages that are or were active in low-light conditions have lost spectral channels to increase sensitivity (2).Octopus, squid, and cuttlefish (coleoid cephalopods) have l...