Given a blank slate, what should the 21st century college classroom look like, and how should it be operated? Answering those questions is the idea behind setting up "incubator classrooms," spaces dedicated to trying out new technologies and new ways of teaching and learning. By incubating new ideas, faculty members and IT staff discover which teaching approaches and tools work best, before they're rolled out more broadly across campus. Two newly launched initiatives--one at a large public university and the other at a smaller, private institution--demonstrate the unique journey incubator spaces take from conception to setup and use, even when they've been designed with similar goals. In both cases profiled in this article, many of the actual trappings are almost laundry-list: flexible seating and tables, portable computing devices that can be stashed away, broadband connectivity, collaboration software, interactive whiteboards, and easily viewed displays. But the details vary regarding evolution of design, technology assessment and choices, and space usage.