The present study describes a first attempt in Brazil to establish a nutrition surveillance system based on the systematic collection of the height of children entering the first grade of primary school. The strategy used recognized the School Discrict as the nuclear institution to operate the system. A quality control system showed that trained people were able to collect anthropometric data with margin of error compatible with the purposes of the system. Costs were low, around 30 cents of US dollar per child examined, and they can be further reduced since the system is operated in large scale.