Abstract Reflection spectroscopy holds great promise for characterizing the atmospheres and surfaces of potentially habitable terrestrial exoplanets. The surface of the modern Earth exhibits a sharp albedo change near 750 nm caused by vegetation—the red edge—which would leave a strong spectral signature if present on an exoplanet. However, the retrieval of wavelength-dependent surface properties from reflection spectra has seen relatively little study. Here, we propose a new surface albedo parameterization capable of retrieving the wavelength location of a priori unknown “edge-like” features. We demonstrate that a wavelength-dependent surface albedo model achieves higher accuracy in retrieving atmospheric composition than a uniform albedo model. Wavelength-dependent surfaces are also generally preferred over a uniform albedo model when retrieving simulated reflection spectra for a modern Earth analog, even for moderate signal-to-noise ratios (S/N = 10) and Earth-like clouds. Further, the location of the modern Earth’s red edge can be robustly and precisely constrained (within 70 nm for S/N = 10). Our results suggest that future space-based direct-imaging missions have the potential to infer surface compositions for rocky exoplanets, including spectral edges similar to those caused by life on the modern Earth.