Four methods for designing digital filters optimal in the Chebyshev sense are developed. The properties of these filters are investigated and compared. An analytic method for designing narrow-band FIR filters using Zolotarev polynomials, which are extensions of Chebyshev polynomials, is proposed. Bandpass and bandstop narrow-band filters as well as lowpass and highpass filters can be designed by this method. The design procedure, related formulae and examples are presented. An improved method of designing optimal minimum phase FIR filters by directly finding zeros is proposed. The zeros off the unit circle are found by an efficient special purpose root-finding algorithm without deflation. The proposed algorithm utilizes the passband minimum...