The optimized wrist coil was designed and built as a transmit-receive birdcage coil for 1.5-T magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. Phantom studies were conducted to compare the optimized design with custom-designed and commercially available phased-array wrist coils and showed a 50%-90% improvement in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Blinded review of wrist images obtained in six volunteers showed that the optimized birdcage coil was preferred in 75% of the comparisons. An optimized birdcage coil designed for wrist imaging has improved both SNR and uniformity compared with those with a phased-array coil with the same geometry.