amount of desired product 2 formed (Table , Entry 2). There is much precedent for the use of hydrogen-bonding catalysis to accelerate oxy-Michael cyclizations. Indeed, with 1 equivalent of NEt3 and catalytic Schreiner's thiourea, a powerful Hbond donor, 42% of 2 formed, a dramatic increase relative to previous results (Table , Entry 3). It was critical to use the thiourea as a catalyst, as stoichiometric amounts were deleterious to reaction performance (Table , Entry 4). Given these positive results, we wondered whether using bifunctional ("activation-deprotonation") hydrogen-bond catalysts Next, we examined the substrate scope of our optimized transformation (Scheme 2). A variety of nitrostyrenes were compatible with our operationally simple protocol of stirring substrate with 10 mol% of H-bonding catalyst in CH2Cl2 at ambient temperatures. Importantly, no special precautions were taken to exclude air or moisture, and no additional additives were required for optimal results. We observed for several substrates that the yield of product had to be somewhat sacrificed for reasonable to high enantioselectives. Thus, for each substrate, we elected to determine optimal conditions for both racemic and scalemic reactions. We reasoned that this strategy would allow for the broadest applicability of our technology. In certain contexts, such as natural products synthesis, the enantioselectivity of a key step may be of paramount importance. In others, such as medicinal chemistry discovery projects, a racemic reaction may be of greater utility, as the biological activity of each enantiomer will have to be determined at a later stage.