Current methods for estimating the surface temperature of sea and lake ice-the ice surface temperature (IST)-utilize two satellite imager thermal bands (11 and 12 mu m) at moderate spatial resolution. These "split-window" or dual-band methods have been shown to have low biases and uncertainties. A single-band algorithm would be useful for satellite imagers that have only the 11 mu m band at high resolution, such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), or that do not have a fully functional 12 mu m band, such as the Thermal Infrared Sensor onboard the Landsat 8. This study presents a method for single-band IST retrievals, and validation of the retrievals using IST measurements from an airborne infrared radiation pyrometer during the NASA IceBridge campaign in the Arctic. Results show that IST with a single thermal band from the VIIRS has comparable performance to IST with the VIIRS dual-band (split-window) method, with a bias of 0.22 K and root-mean-square error of 1.03 K.