The implosion of a dense &thgr; pinch plasma driven by an annular Z‐pinch is considered. A cryogenic fiber is coaxially located within an annular gas jet Z‐pinch. The imploding Z‐pinch traps an applied axial magnetic field and conserves flux. The axial magnetic field increases due to compression of the outer pinch and attains values in excess of tens of megagauss with field risetimes of order,dB/dt = 10MG/ns, with an order of magnitude shorter rise time than the Z‐pinch current. An azimuthal &thgr;‐current is induced on the fiber surface with a similar rise time; which could not otherwise be achieved in a simple fiber Z‐pinch due to the large inductance initially presented by the small diameter axial plasma. The implosion transfers Z‐pinch kinetic energy to the magnetic field and then to the &thgr;‐pinch. The final plasma pressure of the &thgr;‐ pinch exceeds the magnetic pressure so that the &thgr;‐pinch then expands‐the only confinement is inertial. To reach break‐even and beyond, with reasonable Z‐pinch currents, we increase the radiative losses by seeding the discharge with high Z impurities. Seeding a cryogenic Hydrogen‐like fiber with high Z‐impurities would substantially reduce the preheat in the &thgr;‐pinch, over a non‐seeded discharge, and increase the final density by radiative collapse. Thusn&tgr; ∼ 1014 cm−3‐s could be reached with a confinement time of 0.01 ns and density of 1025cm−3predicted in this paper.