The dual-mode heat flow meter technique was developed for steady-state thermal characterization by optimizing the curve fit between the experimental temperature profile and the prediction from a simple analytical solution taking into account conductive as well as radiative heat transfer. The validation results were seen to be in good agreement with published literature values and demonstrated the versatility of the method. Moreover, the technique is ideally suited for characterization of anisotropic materials without necessitating any additional information about the nature of anisotropy and lends itself as an attractive alternative for characterization of novel materials with engineered transport properties. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.