North Carolina State University may never build another computer lab. Instead the university has installed racks of equipment in windowless rooms where students and professors never go. This article describes a project called the Virtual Computing Lab. Users enter it remotely from their own computers in dormitory rooms or libraries. They get all the features they've had in the past, including access to expensive software packages, like 3-D modeling tools and advanced statistical programs, that they need for courses. Now the programs run on powerful computer servers behind the scenes, instead of on desktop PC's. and this lab never closes. More important, the virtual lab doesn't have the limitations of being controlled only by the university's information-technology department. Unlike in physical labs, professors can install anything they want in the virtual laboratory.