The effect of electron–ion Coulomb collisions on the universal mode is studied using a Fokker–Planck collision operator in the kinetic equation for the electron distributionf∥e(x,v∥,t). The expected smoothing of thev∥structure off∥eis found, and the character of the mode is little changed when &ngr;ei→&ohgr;@B|. It is also confirmed that a collisionality on the order of that of present tokamaks is sufficient to provide for destabilization of the mode even in the absence of nonlinear orbit stochastic diffusion.