We present the design of an instrumentation biopotential amplifier that, (a) combines the ac coupling and high input impedance of an ac-coupled buffer with the CMRR of a simple differential amplifier or a monolithic instrumentation amplifier, (b) improves the CMRR by using a potentiometer without requiring either precision resistors or high-CMRR op amps, (c) illustrates how to calculate the CMRR for differential-input stages for either differential output or single-ended output. With our approach, for the 741 op amp, the CMRR of the differential stage exceeds 126 dB at 10 Hz and 106 dB at 100 Hz, which is higher than the 90 dB of the op amp alone. This is because a potentiometer permits mismatch of the resistor ratio, which compensates for the low CMRR of the op amp. Use of the LF355 op amp, which has a wider band-width, yields a CMRR of 126 dB at both 10 and 100 Hz. If the second stage is an instrumentation amplifier then no adjustment is necessary. Mismatch of passive components in the bootstrapped input buffer stage decreases the CMRR from 126 dB to 112 dB at 60 Hz and decreases it further at lower frequencies, but that is not a problem for the usual power-line interference.