A filament stretching device for measuring the extensional viscosity of low‐viscosity liquids is presented. The fluid sample is held between two disks which move apart at an increasing velocity so that the extension rate, based on the filament midpoint diameter, is constant. The device was used to measure the extensional stress growth coefficients of three ideal elastic solutions, including the model fluid M1 and a shear‐thinning model fluid A1. The results indicate that all solutions containing high molecular weight polymer exhibit significant strain hardening as the fluid is extended. For the ideal elastic fluids, steady state in extensional stress was observed at strain above 4.5 and the steady Trouton ratio obtained for the fluids range from 2 to 5×103. For the fluid M1 the extensional viscosities obtained are higher than the apparent extensional viscosity obtained by other methods. This is the first time that the steady extensional viscosity has been measured for polymer solutions. The results obtained enable one to evaluate the numerous constitutive equations that have been proposed for polymer solutions.