A novel crossbeam saturated absorption spectroscopy technique is developed for the translational temperature measurement in a shock layer. To perform these measurements, an intense laser, which crosses the probe laser at the measurement point, locally induces saturated absorption. The difference between the saturated and nonsaturated absorption signals provides the information at the crossing point. This measurement is demonstrated in an arc-heated argon plasma wind tunnel. Translational temperature distribution along the stagnation streamline is obtained successfully. The peak temperature is obtained as 5400 K and shows good agreement with the stagnation temperature estimated from the freestream temperature and Mach number.