Radiation patterns with a prescribed shape are useful for many applications. In this paper an iterative algorithm is presented for obtaining a set of excitation coefficients of a linear array that generates a desired main lobe shape with an arbitrarily suppressed sidelobe level. This technique can be applied to linear arrays with uniform or nonuniform spacing and isotropic or nonisotropic elements. The design examples presented show that the iterative algorithm converges rapidly to the desired solution. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1995