  We propose a method to extract nuclear charge distributions from elastic
electron scattering data based upon a mean field approach. The nuclear charge
distributions are generated by solving the Schroedinger equation with a
mean-field potential expanded in terms of Hermite functions. The coefficients
of the potential are changed in order to obtain the best fit with the cross
section data. Applications to the $^{12}C$, $^{16}O$ $^{40}Ca$ and $^{208}Pb$
nuclei are presented.
