4-(2-Pyridylazo) resorcinol, PAR, is shown to be useful for simultaneous determination of cobalt(II) and nickel(II) using second-derivative spectrophotometric method with controlled experimental parameters. This method allows the determination of 0.20-1.25 ppm of nickel(II) and 0.25-1.50 ppm of cobalt(II) in mixtures with good precision and accuracy. This method has advantages of simplicity, speed and requires no prior separations.