Polynuclear aromatic (PNA) pollutants are of concern in indoor and outdoor air monitoring because many PNAs are carcinogenic in laboratory animal biotesting. For comprehensive exposure studies, which usually involve large population distributions and extended assessment periods (several years), there is an urgent need for practical and cost-effective analytical tools to screen large numbers of samples. Synchronous luminescence (SL) has recently been developed as a simple and cost-effective analytical method to be used in an integrated screening procedure for monitoring complex multi-media samples. In conventional luminescence spectroscopy, either the excitation (lambda ex) or the emission wavelength (lambda em) remains fixed. With the SL technique, the emission signal is recorded while lambda ex and lambda em are scanned simultaneously using a constant interval, delta lambda, between the two. Simplicity of the analytical procedures and low cost of the instrumentation make SL very suitable as a screening technique.