The photoluminescence emission peak energy of GaN quantum dots was observed to shift to higher energy with decreasing quantum dot size. This effect was found to be a combination of a blueshift from the confinement-induced shift of the electronic levels and a redshift from the increased Coulomb energy induced by a compression of the exciton Bohr radius. From this observation, absolute values of the exciton binding energy as a function of quantum dot size are determined. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.