A rapid graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometric method for the determination of trace copper and lead in surface water is investigated in this paper. The influences of the program for graphite furnace and matrix modifier are systematically researched. A rapid method without ashing step and chemical matrix modifier is established. The determination limits of copper and lead are 0.9 microgram.L and 1.2 micrograms.L, respectively. The relatively standard deviations (RSD) (n = 1) are 2.5% and 4.1%, respectively. The recoveries are 96.0%-97.2% and 90.0%-92.0%, respectively.