Background: This study evaluates the existing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) knowledge and skills of 1 st year dental students and also compares their CPR performance skill with those of 4 th year students. Methods: Incoming 1 st year and 4 th year dental students were surveyed about the level of their CPR knowledge before conventional CPR instruction. After we trained them for CPR performance, we tested CPR performance skill to randomly selected 10 1st year and 4 th year dental students and compared their CPR performance. Results: Overall CPR knowledge was low for both 1 st and 4 th year dental students. Especially, only 1 among 89 fourth year dental students answered the right sequence of CPR revised in 2010. Overall CPR performance was relatively low for both 1 st and 4 th year dental students. Irrespective of previous experiences of CPR education, their CPR performance was not statistically different. Conclusions: Retraining of CPR is a necessity. Information about the existing CPR knowledge for dental students will aid in establishing the goal of future CPR training and improve the current deficiency.