An apparatus consisting of two pairs of identical lenses which is suitable as a compound objective lens for high numerical aperture imaging is disclosed. The compound lens also has a wide field of view as a fraction of the compound lens focal length. By suitable choice of lens materials, well corrected near infrared imaging can be achieved. When two such compound lenses together with a diffraction grating are assembled into a spectrometer, excellent wavelength resolution in the near infrared can also be obtained.