A theory of the line shape for collision-induced translational absorption in rare-gas mixtures is developed. The reduced line-shape function is expanded in terms of the quantity ρ/σ, typically of the order of 0.1, where ρ is the range of the induced dipole moment and σ is the size of the repulsive core of the interatomic potential. The calculation is based on the special properties of the exponential model for the induced electric dipole moment. The temperature is assumed to be sufficiently high that the motion of the atoms can be treated classically, while the density is assumed to be sufficiently low that only binary collisions are important and intercollisional correlation effects are negligible over the frequency range of interest. A least-squares comparison of theory with experiment yields values for ρ and the magnitude of the induced moment for Ne–Ar and He–Ar pairs.