We show that the Photo-Acoustic Spectroscopy (PAS) is an useful alternative method for the determination of the optical-absorption coefficient of CdTe thin films, in the spectral region near to the fundamental absorption edge, ranging from 1.0 eV to 2.4 eV, using an open cell in the transmission configuration. We applied this method to the optical characterization of CdTe layers for several values of their thickness. These CdTe samples were deposited by closed-space vapor transport (CSVT) technique under different growth conditions.