An analytical model of the bidirectional reflectance for optically semi-infinite plant canopies has been extended to describe the reflectance of finite depth canopies with contributions from the underlying soil. The model depends on 10 independent parameters describing vegetation and soil optical and structural properties. The model is inverted with a nonlinear minimization routine using directional reflectance data for lawn , soybeans (LAI, 2.9) and simulated reflectance data (LAI, 1.0) from a numerical bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model (Myneni et al., 1988). While the ten-parameter model results in relatively low rms differences for the BRDF, most of the retrieved parameters exhibit poor stability. The most stable parameter was the single-scattering albedo of the vegetation. Canopy albedo could be derived with an accuracy of less than 5% relative error in the visible and less than 1% in the near-infrared. Sensitivity tests were performed to determine which of the 10 parameters were most important and to assess the effects of Gaussian noise of the parameter retrievals. Out of the 10 parameters, three were identified which described most of the BRDF variability. At low LAI values the most influential parameters were the single-scattering albedos (both soil and vegetation) and LAI, while at higher LAI values (>2.5) these shifted to the two scattering phase function parameters for vegetation and the single-scattering albedo of the vegetation. The three-parameter model, formed by fixing the seven last significant parameters, gave higher rms values but was less sensitive to noise in the BRDF than the full ten-parameter model. A full hemispherical reflectance data set for lawn was then interpolated to yield BRDF values corresponding to advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) scan geometries collected over a period of nine days. The resulting retrieved parameters and BRDFs are similar to those for the full sampling geometry, suggesting that the limited geometry of AVHRR measurements might be used to reliably retrieve BRDF and canopy albedo with this model. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1994