We report on the design and performance of a low‐temperature sample manipulator for ultrahigh‐vacuum surface studies. The arrangement consists essentially of modified commercial sample manipulator coupled to a closed‐cycle helium refrigerator. The device allows a metal sample or a substrate, which is electrically isolated, to be cooled down to 16 K and heated up to 1100 K for cleaning and annealing purposes. Besides, the sample can be translated by ±0.5 cm in three perpendicular directions (X,Y, andZaxes), rotated by ±100° azimuthally along the main shaft (Zaxis), and flipped over a range of 50° about an axis perpendicular to the main shaft. The sample holder, which includes the rotation supports, is sufficiently compact to be manipulated without hindrance as close as 1.4 cm from a given instrumentation. A simple mathematical model is developed to predict the cooling capacity of the present design or that of similarly constructed devices. ©1995 American Institute of Physics.