The advantages of performing carotid endarterectomy in the awake patient have been presented based on a 13 year experience. Anesthesia consisted of either local infiltration of local lidocaine or regional neck block supplemented by intravenous sedation. The principal advantages of the technique are that it is the only exact method of assessing the need for an intraluminal shunt by neurologic assessment of the awake patient during trial carotid cross-clamping, and the elimination of general anesthesia allows carotid endarterectomy to be safely performed on patients with advanced inoperable coronary artery disease and in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. One hundred consecutive carotid endarterectomies have been reported with one late death and one mild, permanent neurologic deficit. These results support the belief that carotid endarterectomy can be performed with very low morbidity and mortality rates by operating on the awake patient.