In this Letter, the development of a custom-designed incoherent broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectrometer (IBBCEAS) and its application to in situ measurement of aerosol extinction near the ground surface are described in an effort to address the issue of missing data in the light detection and ranging (lidar) blind zone in the first hundreds of meters of the observation range. Combined measurements of aerosol extinction at the same location using lidar remote sensing at 355 nm and in situ IBBCEAS operating in the UV spectral region around 370 nm showed results with a good correlation (${{\rm R}^2} = {0.90}$R2=0.90) between the two measurement techniques. This Letter highlights a new strategy for near-end lidar calibration, using a ground-based compact and robust IBBCEAS located at the lidar measurement site to determine the vertical profile of the aerosol extinction coefficient with a higher accuracy.