Lead in high-salt food was measured by treating the ash with sulfuric-nitric acid, and diluting lead standard with sodium sulfate to eliminate the disturbance of chloride in detecting lead with atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The minimum detection limit was 0.10 mg/kg. The relative standard deviation is 1.72%, 5.00% and 7.14% while the amount of lead was 8.70, 2.40 and 1.40 micrograms respectively. The recovery varied between 90.0%-109.0%. There was no significant difference (P > 0.05) of the lead content between the mentioned method and extraction flame photometry. The amount of lead is higher obviously than that of other two methods by eliminating the disturbance of chloride. The method was simple, precise and accurate, and suitable for hygienic examination.