We report a 50‐fold fiber‐grating pulse compression in the near‐infrared region. 100 ps (FWHM) pulses from a mode‐locked neodymium:yttrium aluminum garnet laser operated at 1.319 &mgr;m have been compressed into 2 ps pulses by using a 2‐km dispersion‐shifted fiber and a grating pair separated by 2.41 m in a double‐pass configuration. The novel feature of this demonstration is the use of dispersion‐shifted fiber (zero‐dispersion wavelength at 1.59 &mgr;m) for producing a linear chirp over most of the pulse and, thus, almost all the input power appears in the compressed pulse.