Two simple and sensitive spectrophotometric methods are proposed for the determination of amitriptyline in its pure form and in tablets. The first method is based on the formation of charge- transfer complex between amitriptyline as n-donor and tetracyano-ethylene (TCNE) as Ï€acceptor. The product exhibit absorbance maximum at 470 nm in acetonitrile solvent (pH =9.0 ) . In the second method the absorbance of the ion- pair complex, which is formed between the soughted drug and bromocresol green (BCG), was measured at 415 nm at ( pH=3.5) . In addition to classical univariate optimization, modified simplex method (MSM) was applied in the optimization of the variable affecting  the color producing reaction by a geometric simplex in three dimensions of space.  Beers, law was obeyed in the concentration ranges 6.0-70  and 8.0-100 µg.ml-1 with molar absorbitivites of 2275 and 1475 l. mol-1 cm-1 for TCNE and BCG methods respectively. The limits of detection of the two methods are 0.043 and 0.034 µg.ml-1 and their Sandells sensitivity values are 0.122 and 0.188 µg.ml-1 respectively.