This paper describes the use of a sophisticated computer model in university teaching. TIEBOUT is a PC‐based program which assesses the economic impacts of expenditure in National Parks. The program has been used extensively by Parks Canada, but it has had even greater use as a teaching tool at the University of Waterloo. The paper documents the development, features and use of the TIEBOUT model, and then outlines the way students were asked to conceptualise, execute and comment on various scenarios using the model. The real world basis of the model, and the elegance of its formulation, allowed some fundamental concepts in the operation of multipliers to be fully explored. The final section of the paper reports on student and instructor evaluations of the TIEBOUT teaching program.