Many extensions of the standard model predict muon to electron conversion in the process&mgr;+Nucleus→e+Nucleusat ratios, R, of10−14to10−17muon captures. A long history of experiments which have improved upper limits on R, to the current value of<6.1×10−13set by SINDRUM II, have been limited by muon statistics rather than background. A new experiment, MECO, has been proposed to search for muon to electron conversion at levels below5×10−17.MECO takes advantage of a pulsed, high-flux muon beam produced when a proton beam at the Brookhaven AGS is incident on a target in a graded solenoidal field. The detector has 800 KeV momentum resolution and is designed to minimize the background from the beam and maximize efficiency for signal electrons. With1011stopped muons per second,R=10−16would give 5 detected events in a year of running with less than 0.5 background events expected. ©2000 American Institute of Physics.