Experiments were carried out to measure the heat transfer rates to water-cooled horizontal tubes immersed in an atmospheric fluidized-bed combustor burning North Dakota lignite. The effect of bed temperature (T/sub B/ = 587 to 1205K), particle size (anti d/sub p/ = 0.544 to 2.335 mm), and fluidizing velocity (U = 0.73 to 2.58 m/s) on the heat transfer rate to horizontal tubes immersed in a fluidized-bed combustor (0.45 x 0.45 m) was investigated. Among existing correlations, correlations proposed by Glicksman and Decker (1980), Zabrodsky et al. (1980), Catipovic et al. (1980), Grewal (1981), and Bansal et al. (1980) are found to predict the present data quite well, when the contribution due to radiation is included. The radiative heat transfer is estimated as the difference between the heat transfer to an oxidized boiler tube and to a gold-plated tube. The relative contribution of radiation is found to be 11% for a bed of sand particles (anti d/sub p/ = 0.9 mm) operating at 1088K. 40 refs., 7 figs., 5 tabs.