The invention discloses a spectrum wave number selection method. Correction samples are randomly sampled many times according to wave numbers of spectra, a partial least square regression model is built, a variable projection importance coefficient of each wave number is calculated, the variable projection importance coefficients are sequenced in a descending mode, wave number sets corresponding to the distribution sequence are obtained, the re-sequenced wave number sets are subjected to wave number screening step by step, a result of each time of wave number selection is calculated, and a wave number primary selection set is obtained; then, absolute values of a partial least square regression coefficient of each wave number in the wave number primary selection sets is counted and correspondingly processed, the processed partial least square regression coefficients are sequenced in a descending mode, a corresponding wave number distribution sequence is recorded, then a strategy for reversely eliminating wake-correlation wave numbers is adopted, and the optimal feature wave number set is obtained. The method can fully mine effective information in wave numbers, effectively solves the subjectivity problem of wave number selection, extracts feature wave numbers to the largest extent, eliminates influences of weak correlation factors, and remarkably improves robustness and precision of the model.