Over the past several years, I have organized and taught a core course in Modern Biophysics Techniques at the University of California Davis. Graduate students in biophysics, chemistry, physics, and engineering enroll in the class to survey the physical techniques that scientists use to study biology. Introducing the diverse and complex field of biophysics in an academically rigorous but in-teresting way poses daunting challenges. Indeed, the course has undergone many transforma-tions and has tried on many styles: seminar/journal club, lecture/lab, and just plain didactic lec-ture formats. These, however, have achieved limited success, because they either assume a strong mathematics/physical-science background or reduce the physical science to a pedestrian level of knowledge, or demand that students trudge along with the expert researchers. None have attracted the interest of biology, physiology, or medical students, who must search for the biological meaning within biophysics.