We present optical simulations of a new approach to directly image terrestrial planets. Terrestrial planets typically are 10 orders of magnitude fainter than the central star, a difficult challenge for any optical system. Our studies show that the combination of an external occulter and an apodizer yields the required contrast, with significantly reduced requirements on stray light and diffraction. This mitigates the very high mirror tolerances required of other coronagraphic methods and makes exo‐planet detection feasible with current technology.