A comparison study was carried out to evaluate the two most commonly used background correction techniques in furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy, the Zeeman effect and continuum source background correction. Synthetic sample matrices were prepared consisting of the most frequently determined furnace elements in environmental waste samples. Arsenic, selenium, thallium, lead, and antimony were determined in high concentration matrices of aluminum, iron, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, titanium, and phosphorus, furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy by using the Zeeman and continuum lamp background correction techniques. The results of the study showed that with identical instrumentation, the Zeeman effect background correction technique provided interference-free analysis in most cases where the continuum source background correction technique failed to correct structured backgrounds.