Surface emitting laser operation at room temperature at &lgr;=496 nm by ps pulsed optical injection has been demonstrated in a II–VI separate confinement heterostructure containing three 80 A˚ thick (Zn,Cd)Se quantum wells (QW). The vertical cavity was formed by low loss, dielectric, distributed Bragg mirrors, yielding a quality factor for the structure of approximatelyQ≊2000. The room‐temperature threshold excitation corresponds to an absorbed optical energy density of 1.4 &mgr;J/cm2or, equivalently, to an estimated electron‐hole pair density of 1×1012cm−2. AtT=200 K, quasicontinuous wave operation was obtained at an average output power of up to 1 mW and an output/input conversion efficiency of 20%. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.