Axial heat conduction effects within the fluid can be important for duct flows if the Prandtl number is relatively low (liquid metals). In addition, axial heat conduction effects within the flow might also be important, if the heating zone is relatively short in length. The present paper shows an entirely analytical solution to the extended Graetz problem with piecewise constant wall temperature boundary conditions. The solution is based on a selfadjoint formalism resulting from a decomposition of the convective diffusion equation into a pair of first order partial differential equations. The obtained analytical solution is as simple to compute as the one without axial heat conduction. The analytical results are compared to available numerical calculations and good agreement is found. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.