Three methods C2, 3-diaminonaphathalene molecular fluorimetry, hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HG-AFS) and hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HG-AAS)] for the determination of selenium in food samples were compared with one another. The absolute detection limits of HG-AFS and HG-AAS are 1.2 and 0.9ng respectively, lower than that of molecular fluorimetry(3.9ng). The precisions and accuracies of HG-AFS and HG-AAS are similar to molecular fluorimetry. When these methods were used to determine selenium in 6 standard reference materials, there was no significant difference among the mean values from each of the methods.