Abstract The DESI survey will measure large-scale structure using quasars as direct tracers of dark matter in the redshift range 0.9 < z < 2.1 and using quasar Lyα forests at z > 2.1. We present two methods to select candidate quasars for DESI based on imaging in three optical (g, r, z) and two infrared (W1, W2) bands. The first method uses traditional color cuts and the second utilizes a machine-learning algorithm.