  We analyze archival Chandra and XMM-Newton data of 4U 0142+61 within the
context of the Surface Thermal Emission and Magnetospheric Scattering model. We
show that 4U 0142+61 spectrum can be fit very well with this physical model
that contains only four parameters. The system parameters can be tightly
constrained from the fits, yielding a surface magnetic field strength of
B=(4.75 \pm 0.02)x 10^{14} G, a surface temperature of kT = 0.309 \pm 0.001$
keV and a scattering optical depth of a few in the magnetosphere. These values
do not vary between observations due to the stability of the source within the
window of the observations. The detailed fits yield $\chi^2$ values that are
statistically much better than the traditionally employed blackbody+power-law
and two blackbody fits. The spectroscopically measured surface magnetic field
strength is higher than, but within, the theoretical uncertainties of the value
inferred from the dipole spindown formula.
