More nurses today have the opportunity to visit other countries and broaden their ideas of health care and nursing. Several colleagues and I have prepared a series of three articles that describe visits to the Soviet Union, China and Africa by nurses participating in exchange tours conducted by Professional Seminar Consultants of Albuquerque, New Mexico. During these two-week trips, American nurses were able to observe health care facilities and talk to health care providers in other countries. Although short visits such as these are not able to provide in-depth understanding of the health care systems or cultures involved, they have provided provocative ideas about how our own health care system differs from others. In some instances, our health care system seems the better one, but in many instances we were able to gain insights from our observations that may help us improve our own system of nursing and health care. This is the first in a series of three articles reporting professional exchange tours between American nurses and nurses of other countries. In this article, the health care system of the Soviet Union is discussed and compared to the United States' system of health care. From this comparison come several insights into ways for improving health care delivery.