AbstractOptical property calculations are presented for poly(A·U), poly[(A‐U)·(A‐U)], poly(G·C), and poly[(G‐C)·(G‐C)]in RNA, B‐DNA, and C‐DNA conformations. An all‐order classical coupled oscillator polarizability theory was used, and an effective dielectric constant of 2 was assumed. The calculated CD spectra were found to be sensitive to both geometry and sequence. Agreement with the measured CD spectra of poly(A·U), poly(G·C), and poly(dG·dC) is very good. Calculations for other sequences and geometries are less satisfactory and are particularly poor for poly[(G‐C)·(G‐C)] in RNA geometry and poly(A·T) in B‐DNA geometry. Attempts to improve agreement with measured spectra by varying monomer properties have been only partially successful for these calculations, but they illustrate the types of changes that may prove to be necessary. Calculations using other published X‐ray coordinates for certain deoxypolynucleotides of simple sequence, some of which are quite different from B‐DNA coordinates, did not result in better agreement with measured spectra. Finally, the dependence of the calculated CD on chain length is examined. Results show that non‐nearest neighbor interactions can be important when runs of 3 or more identical bas