The effectiveness of, and student attitudes toward, an online Food Safety and Regulation course (WEB) were compared with lecture (LECTURE) and combined lecture/online (COMBINED) courses. All students took identical pre-tests, post-tests, and attitude assessments. No significant differences were detected in pre-test scores. Post-test results for WEB, LECTURE, and COMBINED groups were 65.9 plus or minus 3.02, 67.1 plus or minus 2.62, and 73.5 plus or minus 2.59 (mean plus or minus SEM), respectively. After controlling for the pretest, the COMBINED score was significantly higher (P less than 0.05) than the LECTURE and WEB scores. Some student attitude scores in the LECTURE and COMBINED groups were better than the WEB group. The results indicate that students perform as well in the Web-based course as the lecture-based course and that student performance is maximized by combining online and lecture methods.