The use of soft x‐ray magnetic circular dichroism in two‐dimensional (2D) element‐specific vector magnetometry is demonstrated by investigating a thin Fe(001) single‐crystal film grown on ZnSe(001). By measuring element‐specific magnetic hysteresis curves along directions parallel and perpendicular to an applied magnetic field, the 2D behavior of the in‐plane magnetization vectorMis described as a function of the applied magnetic field. The use of this method to obtain element‐specific 3D vector magnetometry in magnetic materials that exhibit both in‐plane and out‐of‐plane magnetization is also discussed. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.