A novel method to measure lifetime-broadening removed (LBR) X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectra is presented. It makes use of monochromatic incident X-rays near resonant condition as well as a high-resolution spectrometer. Fine structures observed in the resonant inelastic X-ray scattering spectra are compared to high-resolution fluorescent excitation XANES spectra for several copper compounds, demonstrating that the present method can be employed to obtain LBR-XANES. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.