Abstract: High purity yttrium oxide is widely used in various fields. The purity of products affects their quality directly. It is necessary to develop a sensitive method for the accurate determination of trace impurities in high purity yttrium oxide. In this paper, the authors put forward an analytical method that 30 elements, i.e. La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yh, Lu, Al, Ba, Ca, Cu, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Si, Sr, Ti, V, Zn in high purity Y2O3 are determined directly by ICP-AES. The writers studied the spectral interference of yttrium and the effect of Y203 matrix and background, and selected the spectral lines of determined elements. The trace impure elements in Y2O3 standard are determined with standard addition method, and the determined results are used as 1ow standard values, so that the determining errors can be cleared up because of neglecting trace impurity elements in Y2O3 standard, and the optimum operating condition is chosen. The detection limits of 30 elements are from 0.003 to 1.3μg/g. This method can satisfy the needs of quality control of high purity Y 203 products and commodity inspection.