The densities of sputtered thin carbon films have been determined using a novel X-ray technique. This nondestructive method involves the measurement of the transmitivity of a characteristic soft (low energy) X-ray line through the carbon film, and using the established equation I1 = I0eμpt where I1/I0 is the transmitivity, fi the photo absorption cross section, t the independently measured thickness, the density p can be easily solved for. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using this simple technique to measure densities of carbon films as thin as 300 Å, which is of tremendous practical interest as carbon films on this order of thickness are used extensively as abrasive and corrosive barriers (overcoats) for metallic recording media disks. The dependence of the density upon film thickness for a fixed processing condition is presented, as also its dependence (for a fixed thickness) upon different processing parameters (e.g., sputtering gas pressure and target power). The trends noted in this study indicate that the sputtering gas pressure plays the most important role, changing the film density from 2.4gm/cm3 at 1 mTorr to 1.5gm/cm3 at 30 mTorr for 1000 Å thick films.