Results on the effects of a metal catalyst and the role of CO as a reducing agent are reported for a resin char and a Wyodak coal char, as well as demineralized samples of the latter. The effect of an active metal catalyst, such as potassium in the current work, is to significantly increase the reactivity both by increasing the number of reaction sites via the catalyst dispersion and reducing the activation energy and by increasing CO2 production. The latter is a beneficial result because it means that less carbon is consumed per molecule of NO reduced. Additional CO in the gas phase "catalyzes" NO reduction via the creation of more labile surface complexes and facilitation of desorption of other oxygen complexes. This effect decreases with an increasing temperature and disappears by about 1123 K. The activation energy of this reaction is comparable to that induced by the metal catalyst.