Using the joint best basis selection based eigen-images correlation recognition method,the optical iris recognition is implemented in a volume holographic opto-electronic hybrid recognition system. In the hybrid recognition system,reference image bank is compressed by eigen-images generated by joint best wavelet packet basis selection algorithm. Both the number of images stored in photorefractive crystal and the time for postprocessing are greatly reduced. The criterion to evaluate bases is modified for maxmizing the recognition capacity. Statistic feature recognition method is utilized for post-processing to make the system more robust. The processing speed of system is fast because of the high parallelism of optical computing and volume holographic correlation. With high accuracy of digital processing, the simulation shows that good recognition performance is achieved.