A system and method of optically routing wavelength channels from within a plurality of optical inputs to any of a plurality of optical outputs. An optical wavelength-selective cross connect (WSXC) switch is described with a first stage of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) routers which support an optical input and a plurality of optical outputs, which are interconnected to a second stage of WDM routers having a plurality of optical inputs and an optical output. The wavelength channel is routed in two stages from one of the input stage routers to an output stage router for output. It should be appreciated that the WSXC switch of the invention can be utilized for passing optical signals in either direction. In a preferred implementation integrated circuit router chips are stacked into cubes to form the routers stages which are cross coupled using a twisted butt joint to form a WSXC switch.