An optimized and validated spectrophotometric method has been developed for the determination of uranyl ion in the presence of other metal ions. The method is based on the chelation of uranyl ion with meloxicam via beta-diketone moiety to produce a yellow colored complex, which absorbs maximally at 398 nm. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range of 5-60 microg/mL with apparent molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity of 5.02 x 10(4)L/mol/cm and 0.1 microg/cm2/0.001 absorbance unit, respectively. The method has been successfully applied for the determination of uranyl ion in synthetic mixture and soil samples. Results of analysis were statistically compared with those obtained by Currah's spectrophotometric method showing acceptable recovery and precision.