  In this paper we define the chromatic number of a lattice: It is the least
number of colors one needs to color the interiors of the cells of the Voronoi
tessellation of a lattice so that no two cells sharing a facet are of the same
color. We compute the chromatic number of the root lattices, their duals, and
of the Leech lattice, we consider the chromatic number of lattices of Voronoi's
first kind, and we investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the chromatic number
of lattices when the dimension tends to infinity. We introduce a spectral lower
bound for the chromatic number of lattices in spirit of Hoffman's bound for
finite graphs. We compute this bound for the root lattices and relate it to the
character theory of the corresponding Lie groups.
