Dental education can benefit from adopting new technologies and modern learning practices. Video-assisted clinical instruction in dentistry (VACID) uses video technology with the purpose of enhancing the teaching of technical skills and the acquisition of clinical knowledge, as well as fostering student-centered learning and critical self-appraisal. VACID is made possible through the capturing, recording, transmitting and viewing of high quality video images of live or pre-recorded clinical procedures. As such, the implementation of VACID represents an attractive teaching tool that can complement and strengthen current clinical and didactic teaching practices used in formal dental education. The primary objective of this paper is to provide an overview of VACID and discuses its various applications in dental education. A second objective of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the video camera set-up used at the University of Iowa for the implementation of VACID in the Department of Periodontics.