The compensating acceptors and donors in nitrogen &dgr;‐doped ZnSe epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy using a nitrogen rf‐plasma source are studied by means of photoluminescence (PL) and photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy (PLE). The temperature dependence of PL and PLE spectra obtained from the nitrogen &dgr;‐doped layers is investigated in detail, and a deep acceptor and a deep donor with ionization energies of ∼170 and ∼88 meV are reported for the nitrogen &dgr;‐doped layers. These two deep centers are assigned to N clusters, i.e., NSe‐Zn‐NSefor the deep acceptor and NSe‐NZnfor the deep donor. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.