Abstract: A method for the determination of iron, manganese, magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium in kaolin clay samples by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry has been developed. Matrix effect could be eliminated by using matrix matching method. The interference among detected elements was not evident. Certified Reference Materials and practical samples were analyzed and the results were in good agreement with the certified values and those obtained from national standard methods. The recovery of the method is 88％～107％ with precision of 0.77％～2.85%RSD (n=12). The proposed method can meet the requirements for commodity inspection of kaolin clay and can be applied to routine inspection.