Abstract.We report the results of a study of two-color laser excitation, o91 + 092, in dense sodium vapor where o91 was tuned in the vicinity of the 3 P fine structure doublet and o92 was tuned to higher n I states. Resonant excitation by o92 of higher ns and nd states from one member of the 3P doublet when o91 is tuned near the other is attributed to collisional excitation transfer. Anomalous dipole forbidden p-p transitions are observed when 0) 2 is tuned to high nP states (> 20) and are believed to be DC electric field induced. Sample spectra for the processes considered are calculated and compared with experiment.