It is shown that the absolute length
l
′
(
w
)
l’(w)
of a Coxeter group element
w
w
(i.e. the minimal length of an expression of
w
w
as a product of reflections) is equal to the minimal number of simple reflections that must be deleted from a fixed reduced expression of
w
w
so that the resulting product is equal to
e
e
, the identity element. Also,
l
′
(
w
)
l’(w)
is the minimal length of a path in the (directed) Bruhat graph from the identity element
e
e
to
w
w
, and
l
′
(
w
)
l’(w)
is determined by the polynomial
R
e
,
w
R_{e,w}
of Kazhdan and Lusztig.