The recent development of CO2 Transverse Excitation at Atmospheric Pressure (TEA) lasers has generated expanding interest and success due to their high pulsed power capabilities and simplicity of construction. The authors therefore decided to construct a CO2 TEA laser because of the need for a high powered, pulsed, coherent radiation source with wave length near 10 microns to conduct absorption studies of laser-induced plasmas. It was decided that the constructed laser should have an output energy per pulse between 10 to 50 joules with a pulse time between 0.1 to 1.0 microseconds. This paper deals with the construction of that laser, and includes a discussion of the background and physics of operation of the CO2 TEA laser. (Author).