A novel approach to cavity ringdown (CRD) spectroscopy based on swept-frequency (SF) lasers enables rapid measurement of CRD absorption spectra. Our new SF CRD spectrometer incorporates a miniature widely-tunable continuous-wave SF laser and requires less than 1 s to record wide-ranging absorption spectra with high sensitivity in a single rapid sweep of the laser frequency. The spectrometer has a single-ended transmitter-receiver configuration based on retro-reflected optical-heterodyne detection, and yields a simple, compact, versatile instrument for efficient sensing of gases. The performance of the spectrometer is demonstrated by measuring weak absorption spectra of carbon dioxide gas at 1.5–1.6 μm.