Two measurements of the altitude distribution of stratospheric water vapor have been made with a rocket-borne infrared photometer, which measures long path atmospheric absorption of the solar beam in the 2.7-μm spectral region. The photometer was flown from Cape Parry, Canada (latitude 70.2 ¿N, longitude 124.6 ¿W), on December 6, 1974, and from Kiruna, Sweden (latitude 67.9 ¿N, longitude 21.1 ¿E), on March 13, 1975, at sunset. These measurements indicate that the water vapor mixing ratio increases from approximately 1.5 ppmv at the tropopause to approximately 8 ppmv at 50 km and then decreases at higher altitudes. These features are consistent with current theoretical considerations of the stratospheric water vapor distribution and with the results of other experimental investigations. A source region from methane oxidation at higher altitudes and a sink near the tropopause are suggested. A computer simulation of laboratory measurements indicated that the wings of the water vapor lines in the 2.7-μm region are super-Lorentzian. This super-Lorentzian behavior of the line wings was incorporated in the analysis of the atmospheric measurements.