In order to compensate for solvent bands and other background effects, a successful infrared (IR) spectral measurement requires a quality single-beam background spectrum with a desired intensity. Usually, it is extremely difficult to bring a background component to the desired intensity in practice. In order to achieve this important but difficult goal, a hybrid single-beam spectrum α=αb1+(1－α)b2 is introduced as the combination of two single-beam spectra b1 and b2 from the same sample but with different pathlengths (b1 and b2), where α (0≤α≤1) is the component factor. Obviously, the intensity of the hybrid spectrum α can be controlled easily to the desired point by simply choosing an appropriate component factor. Under appropriate conditions, the hybrid spectrum α is very nearly identical to the single-beam spectrum obtained from the real sample with the pathlength of b2-αb2+αb1 and the minor spectral distortion of α can be dismissed. As a result, the single-beam spectrum of a real sample b with a pathlength of b2-αb2+αb1 can be represented by α and the real sample does not need to be prepared. Experimentally, the hybrid single-beam spectrum provides a very simple, robust and efficient method to overcome the interference from background samples of IR measurements and shows valuable potential in applications of this field.