One titrimetric and two spectrophotometric methods, which are simple, sensitive and rapid, are described for the assay of lamivudine in bulk drug and in tablet dosage forms using potassium iodate and two dyes, methyl orange and indigocarmine, as reagents. In titrimetry, an aqueous solution of lamivudine is titrated directly with iodate in an acidic medium, and in the presence of an excess of bromide using methyl orange as an indicator. After the decoloration of the red color of methyl orange, the residual bromine is titrated iodometrically to a starch endpoint. Spectrophotometric methods involve the addition of a known excess of iodate in an acidic medium and in the presence of an excess of bromide followed by the determination of residual bromine by the reaction with a fixed amount of either methyl orange and measuring the absorbance at 520 nm (method A), or indigo carmine and measuring the absorbance at 610 nm (method B). In all methods, the amount of iodate which reacted corresponds to the amount of lamivudine content. The titrimetric method is applicable over the 1.5–8.0 mg range. The systems obey Beer’s law for 0.5–5.0 µg/mL (method A) and 1.25–12.5 μg/mL (method B). The calculated apparent molar absorptivity values are found to be 3.3 × 10⁴ and 9.3 × 10³ L mol⁻¹ cm⁻¹, for method A and method B, respectively, and the corresponding Sandell sensitivity values are 6.94 and 24.62 ng/cm². The limits of detection and quantification are also reported for both spectrophotometric methods. Intra-and interday precision and accuracy for the developed methods have been evaluated. The methods were successfully applied to the assay of lamivudine in tablet form and the results were compared with those of a reference method by applying the Student’s t-test and F-test. No interference was observed from common tablet adjuvants. The accuracy and reliability of the methods were further ascertained by recovery experiments using the standard addition technique.