A multiple data layer dye-based optical disk drive uses a disk with a light transmissive substrate onto which the laser light at a single wavelength is incident. The disk substrate supports at least two spatially separated data layers formed of dye material. The disk is either an air-gap structure wherein each data layer is supported on a separate substrate and the substrates are separated by an air-gap, or a solid structure wherein a solid light transmissive spacer layer separates the data layers. The invention makes use of the characteristic anomalous dispersion absorption band of certain dye materials, in which at a specific wavelength the dye material exhibits a high index of refraction and low extinction coefficient. This allows the first data layer (the one nearest the incident laser light) and intermediate data layers to exhibit both sufficient absorption when the laser is focused on those data layers and high transmissivity when the laser is focused on the last or farther data layers. The index of refraction of the dye-based data layers is selected to be significantly greater than the adjacent substrate and spacer layer to enhance the reflectivity, and the thickness of the data layers is selected to take advantage of the constructive interference effect caused by the reflection at those interfaces. In one embodiment of the invention the dye material for the data layers is a mixture of two different dyes that are not chemically reactive with one another and that retain their individual optical properties. This dye-based data layer exhibits anomalous dispersion absorption at two distinct wavelengths, thereby allowing disks recorded at one wavelength to be read by optical disk drives that use lasers operating at a lower wavelength.