A new method has been developed to estimate total arterial compliance from measured input pressure and flow. In contrast to other methods, this method does not rely on fitting the elements of a lumped model to measured data. Instead, it relies on measured input impedance and peripheral resistance to calculate the relationship of arterial blood volume to input pressure. Generally, this transfer function is a complex function of frequency and is called the apparent arterial compliance. At very low frequencies, the confounding effect of pulse wave reflection disappears, and apparent compliance becomes total arterial compliance. This study reveals that frequency components of pressure and flow below heart rate are generally necessary to obtain a valid estimate of compliance. Thus, the ubiquitous practice of estimating total arterial compliance from a single cardiac cycle is suspect under most circumstances, since a single cardiac cycle does not contain these frequencies.