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Many coastal fishes use inshore nursery habitats as juveniles, but it is often difficult to define which nursery areas supply most recruits to adult populations. We tested whether trace element concentrations in otoliths can be used to identify which of 2 nursery habitats (bays or shallow open coast) were occupied by juvenile California halibut. Juveniles from bays in 1998 had concentrations of Cu and Pb in their otoliths that were higher than those in open coast juveniles of the same year. This broad-scale difference between bay and open coast juveniles remained intact when bay juveniles from 1994 to 1997 were added to the comparison, and juvenile halibut could be assigned to their nursery habitat of origin quite accurately (83%) using otolith concentrations of Cu and Pb. At a finer spatial scale, otolith concentrations of Cu and Pb differed among individual bays, and fish from the same bay could differ among years …