During the past decade, small-particle' research has become quite popular in various fields of chemistry and physics. The recognition of quantum-size effects in very small colloidal particles has led to renewed interest in this area. Small particles' are clusters of atoms or molecules ranging in size from 1 nm to almost 10 nm or having agglomeration numbers from 10 up to a few hundred. In other words, small particles fall in size between single atoms or molecules and bulk materials. The agglomeration number specifies the number of individual atoms or molecules in a given cluster. The research in this area is interdisciplinary, and it links colloidal science and molecular chemistry. The symbiosis of these two areas of research has revealed some intriguing characteristics of small particles. This experiment illustrates the following: simple colloidal techniques for the preparation of two different types of quantum-size metal sulfide particles; the blue shift of the measured optical absorption spectra when the particle size is decreased in the quantum-size regime; and use of a simple quantum mechanical model to calculate the particle size from the absorption onset measured for CdS.