  We present a new estimate of the lithium abundance in the atmosphere of the
brown dwarf LP 944-20. Our analysis is based on a self-consistent analysis of
low, intermediate and high resolution optical and near-infrared spectra. We
obtain log N(Li) = 3.25 +/-0.25 using fits of our synthetic spectra to the Li I
resonance line doublet profiles observed with VLT/UVES and AAT/SPIRAL. This
lithium abundance is over two orders of magnitude larger than previous
estimates in the literature. In order to obtain good fits of the resonance
lines of K I and Rb I and better fits to the TiO molecular absorption around
the Li I resonance line, we invoke a semi-empirical model atmosphere with the
dusty clouds located above the photosphere. The lithium abundance, however, is
not changed by the effects of the dusty clouds. We discuss the implications of
our estimate of the lithium abundance in LP 944-20 for the understanding of the
properties of this benchmark brown dwarf.
