  We present a 10-year X-ray light curve and the spectra of a peculiar X-ray
transient in the spiral galaxy M81. The source was below the detection limit of
ROSAT PSPC before 1993, but it brightened substantially in 1993, with
luminosities exceeding the Eddington limit of a 1.5 solar-mass compact
accretor. It then faded and was not firmly detected in the ROSAT HRI and PSPC
observations after 1994. The Chandra image obtained in 2000 May, however, shows
an X-ray source at its position within the instrumental uncertainties. The
Chandra source is coincident with a star-like object in the
Digitized-Sky-Survey. A Hubble image suggests that the optical object may be
extended. While these three observations could be of the same object, which may
be an X-ray binary containing a black-hole candidate, the possibility that the
ROSAT and Chandra sources are two different objects in a dense stellar
environment cannot be ruled out. The Hubble data suggests that the optical
object may be a globular cluster yet to be identified.
