Near‐field imaging is a means of exceeding the diffraction limit in optical microscopy to yield subwavelength resolution optical images of a sample surface. In order to achieve such high resolution, it is necessary to scan the measurement probe above the surface at a height of only a few nanometers which requires careful control of the separation between tip and sample. In the implementation of the near‐field optical microscope (NFOM) reported here, the distance regulation scheme is based on an inverted noncontact atomic force microscope (AFM) in which a cantilever is used as the sample substrate and imaging is performed with a fiber optic tip. In this way, both the benefits of AFM and NFOM are realized simultaneously. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.