Laser action from neutral Xe transitions has been achieved in an Ar–Xe mixture at 1 atm and in a He–Xe, He–Ar–Xe mixture at 2.5 atm excited by a UV preionized short discharge (&Dgr;t?50 ns). In the best mixture, He–Ar–Xe (100–60–1), an overall conversion efficiency of 0.2% was obtained with a 10‐mJ output. These nonoptimized results may be improved by decreasing the input energy density and increasing the pressure.