Determining the chemical composition of cool dwarf stars

Recent developments for determining the chemical composition of cool dwarf stars are reviewed, focusing on the determination of abundances of individual elements for M dwarfs from high-resolution near-infrared spectra. Abundances based on different spectral regions (Y/J- vs H-band) are found to agree within uncertainties. Binaries consisting of an M dwarf and an F/G/K dwarf are being used to verify the abundance determinations. Several caveats are pointed out, which need to be taken into account or which need further development.