The laboratory synthesis of N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide (DEET) is an effective way to combine organic chemistry teaching with a student's day-to-day life outside the classroom. Interest in DEET as a mosquito repellent has been heightened because of the rise of the West Nile virus across much of North America (1). To take advantage of the increased awareness of DEET, the authors took another look at its preparation, which commonly is carried out by reacting carboxylic acid with thionyl chloride (SOCl[subscript 2]) followed by aqueous condensation with an amine to give the amide. The goal was to develop a different route to DEET to give beginner chemistry students a deeper appreciation of the flexibility of organic chemistry synthesis. It was found that m-toluic acid is converted easily and quickly in two different ways to the product DEET, thereby enabling students to observe firsthand that a given compound can be transformed in a variety of ways to the same final product. (Contains 1 table and 2 schemes.)