A laboratory experiment was devised to measure transmission at fine spectral resolution through thick, high-quality samples of CO2 ice over an extended wavelength range. The absorption coefficient throughout the ultraviolet and near-infrared spectral ranges 0.174--1.8 ¿m (5555--57,470 cm-1 in wave number) is presented here. CO2 ice samples were grown at a temperature of 150 K, typical of the Martian polar caps. The path length of the samples varied from 1.6 to 107.5 mm, allowing the measurement of absorption from <0.1 to 4000 m-1. The experiment used both a grating monochromator (with spectral resolution 0.1--0.3 nm) and a Fourier transform spectrometer (with an effective resolution of <1.0 cm-1). The transmission data for five thicknesses are used to estimate both the scattering losses for each sample and the absorption coefficient at each wavelength. The uncertainty in the most transparent wavelength regions (<10 m-1) is due to scattering extinction. Measurement noise and data scatter produce significant uncertainty only where absorption coefficients exceed 1000 m-1. Between 1.0 and 1.8 ¿m there are several weak to moderate absorption lines. Only an upper limit to the absorption can be determined in many places; e.g., the absorption from ~0.25 to 1.0 ¿m is below the detection limit. The estimated visible absorption, ~10--2 m-1, is a factor of 1000 smaller than the values reported by Egan and Spagnolo, which have been used previously to compute albedos of CO2 snow. The new results should be useful for studies of the seasonal polar caps of Mars.