Single‐crystalline, colorless, GaN has been prepared by a vapor‐phase growth technique previously used to prepare GaAs, GaP, and GaSb. These crystals are the first reported speciments of GaN suitable for good electrical and optical evaluation of this compound. It has been determined that GaN has adirectenergy bandgap of 3.39 eV, and that undoped crystals prepared by this method have a very high inherent electron concentration, typically above 1019/cm3, which is probably related to a high density of nitrogen vacancies. Conductingp‐type specimens have been prepared using Ge as the dopant; but this result has been difficult to reproduce, and the samples have been electrically inhomogeneous.