Room‐temperature cw operation of a miniaturized LNP laser pumped with a 0.87‐&mgr;m semiconductor laser is reported. This device has a low threshold, 140 &mgr;W, for an Ar ion laser pump, which corresponds to 83 &mgr;W at 0.87 &mgr;m, and shows nearly single longitudinal mode operation, even at 10 times above threshold. By using a 0.80‐&mgr;m 25‐mW semiconductor laser pump and by an optimized output coupling design, 3.8‐mW output and 15% optical conversion efficiency are expected.