Tremendous strides have been made in the fields of gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) since the invention of the chromatographic technique after the turn of the century. A high level of sophistication has been achieved in the areas of adsorbents, column technology, instrumentation, detectors, and computer data manipulation. However, from the chromatograper's viewpoint as an analytical chemist, the performance of the detector is of critical importance. Although some of the common GC detectors approach the role of universal or mass detectors, the element-selective detectors have limitations which require caution in their application. The lack of good universal mass-type detectors for HPLC remains a serious concern. Some of the limitations of GC and HPLC detectors are discussed in detail.