A combination of Riccati transfer matrix method and finite element method is proposed for obtaining vibration frequencies of structures. This method reduces the propagation of round-off errors produced in the standard transfer matrix method and finds out the values of the frequency by Newton-Raphson method. By this technique, the number of nodes required in the regular finite element method is reduced and therefore a microcomputer may be used. Besides, no plotting of the value of the determinant versus assumed frequency is necessary. As the application of this method, some numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy as well as the capability of the proposed method for the vibration of structures.