Knowledge from lanthanide spectroscopy on wide band gap (6–10?eV) inorganic compounds is used to understand and predict optical and electronic properties of the lanthanides in the III-V semiconductor GaN. For the first time the location of the 4fn ground state energy of each divalent and trivalent lanthanide ion relative to the valence and conduction bands in GaN is presented. The authors will demonstrate that the quantum efficiency of luminescence from Pr3+, Eu3+, Tb3+, and Yb3+ depends on the location of the lanthanide levels. Level location also controls electron acceptor and electron donor properties of lanthanide ions.