To better match students' learning priorities with their practicum experiences and to facilitate skills learning, undergraduate faculty devised the innovative strategy of incorporating a critical care rotation into the first semester of students' clinical experience. The authors describe the basics of this previously untested critical care clinical experience and the essential planning steps prior to implementation, including faculty approval, hospital administrative and nurse manager approval, preceptor identification and education, means of evaluating and grading the students, and evaluation of the overall experience.