The use of the nomination stage as the first step in the identification process is pervasive across the field of gifted education. In many cases, nominations are used to limit the number of students who will need to be evaluated using costly and time- consuming assessments for the purpose of gifted program identification and placement. This study evaluated the effect of the nomination stage on the overall efficacy of a gifted identification system. Results showed that in nearly all conditions, identification systems that require a nomination before testing result in a large proportion of gifted students being missed. Under commonly implemented conditions, the nomination stage can cause the false negative rate to easily exceed 60%. Changes to identification practices are urgently needed in order to ensure that larger numbers of gifted students receive appropriate educational placement and to maintain the integrity of gifted education services.