Used herein are two or more switchable variable birefringence liquid crystal devices, in combination with a passive retarder, to produce a device that switches between two retardation values. The device preserves the normal-incidence retardation in each of two voltage states over a broad range of incidence angles using a novel self-compensation scheme. According to one embodiment of this design, the retardation in the thickness direction remains zero in both the unenergized and fully energized states.