Two new ternary transition-metal chalcogenides, niobium iridium tetratelluride (NbIrTe 4) and tantalum iridium tetratelluride (TaIrTe 4), have been prepared by reaction of the elemental powders at 1000°C. The structure of NbIrTe 4 has been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction methods. The compound crystallizes in space group C 7 2 v - Pmn2 1 of the orthorhombic system with four formula units in a cell of dimensions a = 3.768(3), b = 12.486(10), c = 13.077(9) Å at 294 K. NbIrTe 4 is a layered compound with a structure closely related to those of WTe 2 and β-MoTe 2, variants of the CdI 2 structure type. The layers comprise buckled sheets of Te atoms, with the Nb and Ir atoms residing in distorted octahedral sites. Metal-metal bonding appears to be responsible for a close association of the Nb and Ir atoms. From Weissenberg photography, the compound TaIrTe 4 is found to be isostructural to NbIrTe 4, with cell dimensions a = 3.77(3), b = 12.37(6), c = 13.17(3) Å. Electrical resistivity measurements along the a axis of both compounds show that they are metallic: ϱ 298 = 8.1 × 10 −5 and 1.2 × 10 −4 Ω cm for NbIrTe 4 and TaIrTe 4, respectively. Magnetic susceptibility measurements indicate essentially temperature-independent Pauli paramagnetism for both compounds: χ m = 1.9 × 10 −3 and 8.9 × 10 −4 emu mol −1 for NbIrTe 4 and TaIrTe 4, respectively. The compounds NbIrTe 4 and TaIrTe 4 appear to belong to a larger class of compounds MM′Te 4 with M = Nb, Ta and M′ = Ru, Os, Rh, Ir.