Studies were conducted on the assay of Sm, Eu, Dy and Er separated from uranium using aqueous standards by electrothermal AAS with Massmann type graphite furnace. The working curves were found to be linear in the ranges Sm (1–10 μg/ml), Eu (0.05–0.6 μg/ml), Dy (0.1–0.8 μg/ml) and Er (0.1–1.0 μg/ml). The values obtained for synthetic samples agreed favourably with those obtained by emission spectrographic method. Experiments using pyrolytic carbon coated tubes with and without pretreatment by La, Ta and Y have shown an enhancement with treatment upto a maximum of 15% and improve the memory effect marginally. The effect of Ta treatment was found to be singularly useful in improving the general behaviour of Sm. The interference effects of lanthanides, other than the analyte, were found to be negligible. However, the presence of uranium was found to affect the absorbance. The absorbance of Eu was found to be nearly independent of uranium after an initial increase. On the other hand, the absorbance of other elements studied was found to drastically decrease after an initial enhancement. Detailed investigations of temperature dependence of absorbance were carried out using Eu, Dy and Er. The differences in the behaviour of these elements is attributed to probable differences in the modes of their atomization.