We propose a quality-based fusion scheme for improving the recognition accuracy using color iris images characterized by three spectral channels - Red, Green and Blue. In the proposed method, quality scores are employed to select two channels of a color iris image which are fused at the image level using a Redundant Discrete Wavelet Transform (RDWT). The fused image is then used in a score-level fusion framework along with the remaining channel to improve recognition accuracy. Experimental results on a heterogenous color iris database demonstrate the efficacy of the technique when compared against other score-level and image-level fusion methods. The proposed method can potentially benefit the use of color iris images in conjunction with their NIR counterparts. © 2010 IEEE.