Soft x rays from a plasma generated by a neodymium: yttrium aluminum garnet laser beam (1.06 &mgr;m) are used to photoionize neutral Li vapor to produce Li+metastables. Maximum metastable densities of Li+(1s2s)1S=6×1014ions/cm3and Li+(1s2s)3S=3×1015ions/cm3are obtained. The effective lifetimes of these levels are measured to be approximately 5 ns. At 50 mJ of incident laser energy the inferred conversion efficiency from 1.06‐&mgr;m radiation to soft x rays is ∼14%.