We estimate the optical depth to self-lensing by stars in the Galactic bulge using the Hubble Space Telescope star counts of Holtzman et al .
and Zoccali et al .
as extrapolated by Gould into the brown-dwarf and remnant regimes and deprojected along the line of sight using the model of Dwek et al .
We find a self-lensing optical depth \tau { ( bulge - bulge ) } = 0.98 \times 10 ^ { -6 } .
When combined with the lensing of bulge stars by foreground stars in the disk , this yields \tau { ( bulge - total ) } = 1.63 \times 10 ^ { -6 } , in reasonable agreement with the estimates of \tau = 2.13 \pm 0.40 \times 10 ^ { -6 } 
and \tau = 1.08 \pm 0.30 \times 10 ^ { -6 } based on observations of clump giants by the MACHO and EROS collaborations .