Conventionally, metal halide lamps were ignited by striking the lamp electrodes several times with high voltage pulses. Such a starting scenario causes uncomfortable light strobes to users. To solve this problem, this thesis attempts to ignite small-wattage metal halide lamps with a single pulse strike. At first, the forms of the high voltage pulses required for breaking down the electrodes are investigated. After being broken down, a continuous current is critical for sustaining the lamp arc. With conventional electronic ballasts, however, the lamp current tends to resonate to zero resulting in break of the lamp arc. This problem can be solved by adding an extra switch to remove the capacitor of the output filter during the ignition stage. An electronic ballast is designed and tested on 70 W metal halide lamps with an associated switch for single pulse striking. Experiments have demonstrated that the proposed ignition criteria can start up the lamps successfully with a single-pulse high voltage.