The spectroscopic properties of Ni^2+ -doped nanocrystalline glass-ceramic fibers are reported. The cerammed fibers show strong fluorescence with peak wavelength at 1250 nm, 3-dB bandwidth at ~250 nm , measured lifetimes at >1 ms , and low-fluorescence saturation powers (~35 mW) for 980-nm diode pumping. Current diode-pumped output powers are ~100 µ W .