A means of reproducibly fabricating stable cw lasers in rare‐earth‐doped Ti:LiNbO3has been demonstrated through judicious choice of waveguide orientation. Z‐propagating waveguides have been fabricated in Nd‐ and Er‐diffused Ti:LiNbO3and room‐temperature laser operation with greatly reduced photorefractive instability has been obtained. The reduced photorefractive damage susceptibility in this waveguide configuration has led to the realization of a 980 nm pumped laser in Er:Ti:LiNbO3, with a threshold of 10.5 mW of absorbed pump power and a slope efficiency of 8.5%. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.