Instrumentation has been developed for the measurement of electron temperature and density profiles at the boundary of COMPASS-D tokamak plasmas from He I line intensities. The technique is applicable to measurements of ne and Te over the relevant ranges of 1017–1020 m−3 and 10–500 eV. Spectra from eight viewing chords viewing a thermal helium jet are recorded on a CCD sensor with ≈1 ms time resolution. A 0.6 m Czerny-Turner spectrometer, corrected for astigmatism using an internal, cylindrical lens optimizes throughput by availing of a 110×110 mm2, 300 l/mm grating. ne and Te profile measurements from L-mode (low) and quiescent H-mode (high) confinement plasmas are presented.