Technical Abstract: Insect fragments in commercial wheat flour are a major concern to the milling industry because consumers expect high quality and wholesome products at the retail level. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established a defect action level of 75 insect fragments per 50 g of flour. Millers routinely test their wheat flour to comply with this federal requirement and to deliver sound flour to their consumers. The current standard flotation method for detecting fragments in flour is expensive and labor intensive. Therefore, we examined the possible use of a rapid, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) method for detecting insect fragments in wheat flour. We also compared the sensitivity and accuracy of the NIRS method with that of the current standard flotation method. Fragment counts with both techniques significantly correlated with the actual number of fragments present in flour samples. However, the flotation method was more sensitive at the FDA defect action level than the NIRS method. We were unable to correctly classify samples as containing fewer than 75 fragments with our NIRS instrumentation. However, NIRS can classify flour samples containing more than 75 fragments, with more than 90% accuracy. Although current NIRS instruments are unable to detect insect fragments at the FDA action level, this method should be reexamined in the future because NIRS technology is rapidly improving.