MIS curricula in business schools are challenged to provide MIS courses that give students a strong practical understanding of the basic technologies, while also providing enough hands-on experience to solve real life problems. As an experimental capstone MIS course, the authors developed a cluster-computing project to expose business students to the technologies of distributed computing, parallel computing, networking, securing networked environments and designing an application for distributed computing. Building such a cluster requires the integration and application of concepts including operating systems, networking, parallel computing, and computer architecture, making it an excellent subject for a capstone project. This paper describes the author's experience in developing a cluster-computing course, the use of a cluster-computing project to integrate the knowledge of various MIS courses and, a blueprint of the authors' recommendations to other faculty interested in developing a cluster-computing course. Building a Beowulf cluster was a rewarding project for a capstone course in which students learned many MIS and project management concepts. Based on the authors' experiences, building a Beowulf cluster as a senior project for a capstone course is highly recommended. Students reported that this course enhanced their understanding of operating systems, networking, security, and parallel computing concepts. The purpose of this paper is to share the experiences of cluster computer implementation in a business curriculum and how cluster computing capstone course could be used for integrating MIS concepts and provide strong hands on experience. The theoretical and technical challenges make it an absorbing and rewarding capstone project for an undergraduate education. (Contains 1 figure.)