Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (APCVD) of polycrystalline thin-film CdTe appears to offer several practical advantages over state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques. APCVD employs the same reaction chemistry utilized to produce 16&percent; efficient CdTe cells (i.e., same reaction chemistry as Close Spaced Sublimation), avoids use of vacuum equipment, allows for physical separation of the source and substrate, and employs forced convection to ensure uniform delivery of source material over large-area substrates. Reactor design considerations and preliminary numerical simulations of mass transport are presented. ©1999 American Institute of Physics.