A repetitive, tunable, high-power vacuum ultraviolet laser operating on the 172-nm bound–free transition in xenon has been developed for use in photochemistry, selective excitation spectroscopy, and in the generation of coherent radiation in the XUV spectral region. A compact high-voltage generator is employed in conjunction with a coaxial cold-cathode diode to pump high-pressure xenon at a repetition rate of up to 10 Hz, though at present gas heating limits the operation of the laser to 0.5 Hz. The apparatus has been designed for compatibility with fluorine, and is consequently a suitable pumping source for the rare gas halide exciplex lasers. The gas handling techniques which enabled reliable, reproducible laser action to be achieved in xenon for several hundred pulses are described.