A novel gas nozzle design that allows for collinear laser and molecular beams is described. Unlike conventional nozzles that open and close to limit the gas flow into a vacuum chamber, this nozzle opens to release a small volume of gas into the chamber. Gas pulses of 300 μs duration and 65±5 μs opening times have been obtained. When room-temperature H2 is used as the source gas, the rotational temperature was found to be 175±12 K, whereas when room-temperature D2 was used, the rotational temperature was found to be 104±7 K. The collinear optical and molecular beam path provided in this design may be useful in photodissociation experiments, the study of atomic and molecular collisions, Rydberg state lifetime measurements, and vacuum ultraviolet generation by nonlinear mixing in gases.