以下是一个同时具有简单和复杂成员类型的例子。它显示两层引用。注意"Author"accssor元素的"href"属性是对相应具有"id"属性的值的引用。"Address"与之类似。

<e:Book>
 <title>My Life and Work</title>
 <author href="#Person-1"/>
</e:Book>
<e:Person id="Person-1">
 <name>Henry Ford</name>
 <address href="#Address-2"/>
</e:Person>
<e:Address id="Address-2">
 <email>mailto:henryford@hotmail.com</email>
 <web>http://www.henryford.com</web>
</e:Address>

当"Person"的值和"Address"的值是multi-reference时，上面的形式是正确的。如果它们是single-reference，就必须用嵌入的形式，如下所示：

<e:Book>
 <title>My Life and Work</title>
 <author>
 <name>Henry Ford</name>
 <address>
<email>mailto:henryford@hotmail.com</email>
<web>http://www.henryford.com</web>
 </address>
 </author>
</e:Book>
如果添加一个限制，任意两个人都不会有相同的地址，并且地址可以是街道或Email地址，一本书可以有两个作者，编码如下：

<e:Book>
 <title>My Life and Work</title>
 <firstauthor href="#Person-1"/>
 <secondauthor href="#Person-2"/>
</e:Book>
<e:Person id="Person-1">
 <name>Henry Ford</name>
 <address xsi:type="m:Electronic-address">
 <email>mailto:henryford@hotmail.com</email>
 <web>http://www.henryford.com</web>
 </address>
</e:Person>
<e:Person id="Person-2">
 <name>Samuel Crowther</name>
 <address xsi:type="n:Street-address">
 <street>Martin Luther King Rd</street>
 <city>Raleigh</city>
 <state>North Carolina</state>
 </address>
</e:Person>

序列化可以包含对不在同一个资源的值的引用：

<e:Book>
 <title>Paradise Lost</title>
 <firstauthor href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/"/>
</e:Book>

以下是描述上面结构的schema片断：

<element name="Book" type="tns:Book"/>
<complexType name="Book">
 <!-- Either the following group must occur or else the
href attribute must appear, but not both. -->
 <sequence minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1">
 <element name="title" type="xsd:string"/>
 <element name="firstauthor" type="tns:Person"/>
 <element name="secondauthor" type="tns:Person"/>
 </sequence>
 <attribute name="href" type="uriReference"/>
 <attribute name="id" type="ID"/>
 <anyAttribute namespace="##other"/>
</complexType>

<element name="Person" base="tns:Person"/>
<complexType name="Person">
 <!-- Either the following group must occur or else the
href attribute must appear, but not both. -->
 <sequence minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1">
 <element name="name" type="xsd:string"/>
 <element name="address" type="tns:Address"/>
 </sequence>
 <attribute name="href" type="uriReference"/>
 <attribute name="id" type="ID"/>
 <anyAttribute namespace="##other"/>
</complexType>

<element name="Address" base="tns:Address"/>
<complexType name="Address">
 <!-- Either the following group must occur or else the
href attribute must appear, but not both. -->
 <sequence minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1">
 <element name="street" type="xsd:string"/>
 <element name="city" type="xsd:string"/>
 <element name="state" type="xsd:string"/>
 </sequence>
 <attribute name="href" type="uriReference"/>
 <attribute name="id" type="ID"/>
 <anyAttribute namespace="##other"/>
</complexType>