This paper discusses the optical properties of colloidal CdSe/CdTe, CdTe/CdSe, and CdTe/CdS heterostructures synthesized by growing a shell on CdSe and CdTe nanocrystals. The extinction coefficients of the first exciton absorption band and the extinction coefficients at 400 nm are determined as a function of the amount of shell material added during the growth of the heterostructures. It is shown that the resulting heterostructures have extinction coefficients 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than the initial cores: up to 0.3 x 10(7) cm(-1) M-1 in the case of CdTe/CdS and CdTe/CdSe and up to 1.6 x 10(7) cm(-1) M-1 in the case of CdSe/CdTe. It is shown that the luminescence wavelength in the 550-950-nm range can be controlled by varying the shell size for CdSe/CdTe heterostructures. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America.