We report a factor of 12 compression of the 5.4‐ps, 1‐kW pulses from a mode‐locked dye laser. The pulses were frequency broadened and linearly chirped by the combined action of self‐phase modulation and group velocity dispersion during passage through a 30‐m single‐mode optical fiber. The fiber output pulses were then compressed to 450‐fs, 3‐kW pulses by passage through a diffraction grating based dispersive delay line. These short pulses were tunable over the 300‐A˚ range of the laser dye.