Coronary care nurses function in a new nursing role; they may have new attitudes about nursing. The purpose of this study, using reference theory, was to identify certain attitudes of coronary care nurses and to compare these with attitudes of nurses in other nursing units. It was hypothesized that coronary care nurses have formed a subgroup within the profession of nursing and, as a result, a new comparison reference group has emerged. A questionnaire was designed and used to interview 60 nurses employed in 15 hospitals throughout the area served by the Regional Medical Program for Western New York. Thirty of the nurses worked in coronary care units and 80 worked in other units of the hospitals. The interviewing was conducted through the Telephone Lecture Network (a two-way telephone system). The questions were pretaped on a ten-minute cartridge which was automatically set to stop after completion of each question. This procedure allowed for probing of answers when necessary. In general, the proposed hypotheses were confirmed. It appeared that within the nursing profession a subgroup has formed with different attitudes about nursing care. Coronary care nurses seemed to have a different frame of reference than other types of nurses with respect to a higher aspiration level—a level requiring greater use of judgment and responsibility, and offering greater challenge.