Clear-sky planetary albedos are derived from NOAA 9 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data during 1986 over the U.S. Great Plains with several distinct surface types (shrubland, grassland, deciduous, and coniferous forests). The cloud-free observations are selected using a combination of absolute threshold and spatial coherence cloud-screening procedures. The broadband albedo is approximated from the narrow-band visible and near-infrared albedo. Bidirectional reflectivity models are applied to account for the effect of Sun-target-sensor geometry. The corrected albedos are converted to daily means using a directional model to account for the dependence upon Sun angle. The results indicate that the present Earth radiation budget models can be efficiently applied to AVHRR data to determine the clear-sky planetary albedos and to remove the apparent albedo discontinuity on images of mapped data. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1989