A simple and inexpensive iodine capillary discharge lamp has been developed. The spectrum of iodine was produced by maintaining a current-limited alternating current discharge in a helium-iodine vapor mixture flowing through a quartz capillary discharge tube. The performance of this spectral lamp as a source of resonance radiation for atomic absorption spectroscopy was evaluated using both unshielded and argon-shielded air-acetylene and nitrous oxide-acetylene flames. Sensitivities and detection limits for iodine obtained using the reported spectral source were found to compare favorably with data reported by other workers who used an electrodeless discharge lamp and a modified hollow cathode lamp.