Development, implementation, and teaching of a college-level course on dying and death are described. The authors review their own experiences in becoming involved with death education and describe teaching methods, problems, and content of their current course in dying and death at the State University of New York, College at New Paltz. Because of the large student enrollment, the approach is a lecture class for 200 students combined with small group sessions for 20 students each week at the instructor's home. Course goals are to explore the sociological implications of death, examine the social-psychological and institutional aspects of death in American society, and develop a personal understanding of death. Topics include death and social behavior, bereavement and grief, abortion and euthanasia, accidents and disasters, homicide and suicide, social meanings of the funeral, and living with dying and death. The course utilizes lectures, readings, films, and one-to-one discussion especially with students who have difficulty dealing with emotional reactions to the subject. Among the possible problems inherent in teaching about dying and death are the tendency of some academic departments to offer courses on death simply to increase departmental enrollment figures, danger of disciplinary compartmentalization when one department claims the sole right to offer death courses, proliferation of poorly-taught courses in response to student interest, and use of death courses to insulate against the pain of personal loss and grief. (AV)