AbstractTechniques for analysing light elements by energy‐dispersive spectrometry are discussed and a new approach is proposed. Firstly, a method for predicting the x‐ray continuum level is developed. It is based on the use of a reference standard and, unlike other methods, is accurate below 1.5 ke V. When combined with methods for dealing with spectrum artefacts, this approach allows the calculation of background levels down to 0.1 ke V. Attention is then given to the problem of overlap, which is particularly important in light element analysis. Various methods for deconvolution of peaks are considered and a technique is adopted based on least‐squares fitting of standard peak profiles. The effects of count statistics and computational accuracy on the final results are discussed. Some practical overlap situations are examined to discover the level of accuracy which can be exp