Reactive sputtering from two elemental targets, aluminum and zirconium, with the addition of two reactive gases, oxygen and nitrogen, is studied experimentally as well as theoretically. The complex behavior of this process is observed and explained. It is shown that the addition of oxygen to a constant supply of nitrogen significantly changes the relative content of aluminum with respect to zirconium in the film. Moreover, it is concluded that there is substantially more oxygen than nitrogen in the films even when the oxygen supply is significantly lower than the nitrogen supply. It is further shown that the addition of a certain minimum constant flow of nitrogen reduces, and eventually eliminates, the hysteresis with respect to the oxygen supply. It is concluded that the presented theoretical model for the involved reactions and mass balance during reactive sputtering of two targets in two reactive gases is in qualitative agreement with the experimental results and can be used to find optimum processing conditions for deposition of films of a desired composition. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.