The ability to successfully conduct specialized conversations in stressful situations is an essential part of professional competence in a number of subject areas; however, there are few opportunities for students to practice the required skills in a realistic environment. The McGill Negotiation Simulator project was established to investigate the use of interactive video to simulate specialized conversations. A series of increasingly challenging conversations with the same person on the same subject was created by adding new facts to the situation under discussion in the first conversation. High resolution, full screen, full motion video was used. Maximizing realism may not always maximize the learning experience; however, it seems to augment student concentration. The disadvantage of high resolution, full screen, full motion video is hardware cost. The first series of three simulations included a sales negotiation in which the student represents an aircraft manufacturer trying to sell a commuter aircraft to the vice president of a major airline. There were problems on two levels. Conceptually, it was questioned whether simulating a person was possible, given the complexity of human communication and behavior. On the implementation level, the question was whether the student would have the feeling of carrying on a conversation with a real person; another problem was video time consumed while the student chose what to say from a menu. It can be concluded that it is possible to create realistic, involving and challenging simulated conversations for use by students practicing specialized conversational skills; while these have a number of advantages over role-playing exercises, they do not replace them. (AEF)