Procedures for recovering mesospheric and stratospheric temperature profiles from scattered-sunlight limb radiance measurements made by the OSIRIS (optical spectrograph and infrared imager system) instrument on the Odin satellite are described. We assess various approaches to the problem and show that temperature recoveries based on an analysis of inferred volume-scattering rates are significantly more accurate than those based on direct analysis of the observed limb radiances. A forward model for the OSIRIS instrument is used to test temperature recovery algorithm performance in the presence of realistic instrument noise and to assess the expected accuracy of the OSIRIS temperature recoveries. It is shown that, for radiances measured in the near-infrared region, temperatures can be reliably recovered over the altitude range 40 km to 80 km with an accuracy of better than ±1 K. PACS Nos.: 42.68Mj, 94.10Dy