Abstract: Beams of metallic ion species can be produced by the ECR (electron cyclotron resonance) ion source and by the MEVVA (metal vapor vacuum arc) ion source. Although the ECR source is fundamentally a gaseous ion source, metal ion beams can be produced by introducing metallic feed material into the plasma discharge using a number of techniques. The ion charge states can be very high, which is a significant advantage to most applications. The MEVVA ion source, on the other hand, is specifically a metal ion source. It has produced metallic ion beams from virtually all the solid metallic elements at a current of typically hundreds of milliamperes; the ions produced are in general multiply ionized, but not as highly stripped as those generated in the ECR source. Although the MEVVA source at present operates in a pulsed mode with a low duty cycle ( ≤ 1%), work is in progress to increase the duty cycle significantly. In this paper the operation and performance of the LBL ECR and MEVVA ion sources, with respect to metal ion generation, are described.