There is significant variability in the quality of deceased-donor kidneys that are used for transplantation. The quality of the donor kidney has a direct effect on important clinical outcomes such as acute rejection, delayed graft function, and patient and allograft survival. Expanded-criteria donors (ECDs) refer to older kidney donors (>60 yr) or donors who are aged 50 to 59 yr and have two of the following three features: Hypertension, terminal serum creatinine >1.5 mg/dl, or death from cerebrovascular accident. By definition, ECD kidneys have a 70% greater likelihood of failure compared with one from a 35-yr-old male donor who died from a motor vehicle accident. Donation after cardiac death (DCD) is a small but rapidly growing fraction of donors. An ECD kidney transplant recipient has a projected average added-life-years of 5.1 yr compared with 10 yr for a kidney recipient from a standard-criteria donor. Kidney transplantation from DCD seems to have similar allograft and patient survival compared with kidney from donation after brain death; however DCD transplantation has a 42 to 51% risk for delayed graft function (need for at least one dialysis treatment during the first week after transplantation) compared with 24% in an standard-criteria donor kidney transplant. Familiarity with the comprehensive allocation rules governing different categories of deceased-donor kidneys by the nephrologists and dialysis team providers is essential to maximizing patient autonomy and to improve the outcomes of kidney transplantation.Clin T ransplantation with organs from deceased donors (DDs) account for Ͼ50% of kidney transplantation in the United States. More than 90% of patients who had ESRD and underwent DD kidney transplantation would have experienced prolonged duration (average of 3 to 5 yr) of maintenance dialysis therapy before receiving a kidney transplant (1). During this pretransplantation dialysis spell, patients develop a strong relationship with their providing nephrologist and dialysis team members. Through this patient-provider relationship, the nephrologist gains a comprehensive picture of the patient's medical condition and is knowledgeable about the evolution of comorbidities, health-related quality of life, functional status, beliefs, and value systems. This relationship is crucial to making major therapeutic decisions, including the acceptance of a DD organ for transplantation; however, the providing nephrologist is typically absent from the organ allocation and offer acceptance process, and the patient with ESRD is provided circumscribed information laden with medical jargon about the quality of the DD organ under offer. In the rapid-fire tempo of activities surrounding the identification and matching of an organ to a recipient (computerized match run) and in the excitement of the moment (after seemingly interminable waiting on the kidney transplant waiting list), most potential recipients accept any organ under offer. Commonly, the transplant team member who makes the organ offer does not have a long-s...