Photoluminescence (PL) studies of bulk and epitaxial CdTe samples obtained from several sources are discussed. Steady state PL measurements were carried out at temperatures ranging from 16–300 K. The effects of surface preparation, substrate temperature, and film thickness were studied in detail for homoepitaxial films grown on the (111)A and (100) planes of CdTe. PL studies of epitaxial CdTe films grown on (0001) sapphire by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), by hot wall MBE, and by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and on the (111)B and (100) planes of GaAs by MBE have also been completed. The CdTe epilayers on sapphire and GaAs substrates typically display a bright PL spectrum dominated by the near edge peak at 1.58 eV (77 K). In addition, a number of films exhibit a near edge peak at 1.503 eV at 300 K, which is indicative of high quality epitaxy and which allowed direct measurement of the room temperature band gap of CdTe. PL studies of epitaxial Cd1−x MnxTe films grown by MBE on 5.0 μm thick CdTe buffer layers on GaAs substrates reveal shifts of the band gap into the visible spectral region with increasing x accompanied by a significant increase in edge peak magnitude.