The performance of a multireference CISD method, CISD[TQ], is compared to that of other approaches which include a large degree of electron correlation, including Brueckner methods. The CISD[TQ] method selects as references all single and double substitutions within an active orbital space. Certain triple and quadruple substitutions from the Hartree-Fock reference are included in the CISD[TQ] wave function as singles and doubles from the selected reference set. This wave function has previously been shown in simpler cases to provide results near to those predicted by the configuration interaction wave function, including all single, double, triple, and quadruple substitutions (CISDTQ). For the challenging multireference case of ozone, the CISD[TQ] wa ve function yields geometries and harmonic vibrational frequencies with an accuracy similar to the full CCSDT method. These promising results suggest that for difficult multireference problems the CISD[TQ] wave function provides an efficient and accurate approach for approximating the complete CISDTQ. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.