We report on several complementary methods for improving the stability of a free running diode laser. We were primarily concerned with: (a) the construction of a stable power supply to reduce the main frequency and rf noise, and (b) long term drift of the laser frequency, for which we have developed a lock-in amplifier to be combined with a simple proportional-integrating circuit. While we have kept everything simple and inexpensive to construct, the stability is comparable with that of far more expensive, commercially available systems. Development and testing of our stabilization scheme was done on the distributed Bragg reflector diode lasers for use in a range of atomic collision and atom optics experiments, but it is applicable to all diode lasers, and can be used in a large range of atomic physics experiments. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.