A new approach to protoporphyrins III (2') and XIII (3') has been developed based on a single set of starting materials, namely, 2,4-dimethyl-3-(2-chloroethyl)carbethoxypyrrole (4) and 3,3'-di(2-methoxycarbonylethyl)-4,4'-dimethyldipyrromethane-5,5'-dicarboxyli c acid (5) for both targets. The biladiene route was adopted for the preparation of 2' (five steps, 18% overall yield) while the coupling of two pyrromethenes was used to synthesize 3' (four steps, 11% overall yield).