A simple gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) method has been developed which provides sensitivity and specificity for the analysis of complex mixtures of the commonly occurring herbicide metabolites aniline, 3-chloroaniline, 4-chloroaniline, 4-bromoaniline, and 3-chloro-4-methylaniline. All of these anilines react with acetic anhydride directly in basified aqueous solution. Further reaction of the acetylated anilines with trifluoroacetic anhydride gave diacyl derivatives which were readily resolved by gas chromatography. The structures of the N-acetylated and N-trifluoroacetylated derivatives of benzylamine (internal standard) and the anilines were confirmed by GLC-mass spectrometry. In distilled water the minimum detectable concentrations of aniline and the substituted anilines, using electron capture GLC, are 0.1 nmole/100 mL and 0.05 nmole/100 mL, respectively. The detection limit for the anilines is 1 nmole/100 mL distilled water, using GLC with flame ionization detection. The technique was applied to the determination of anilines added to urine samples obtained from the general population.