A low-density parity-check code (LDPCC) has been constructed for a block size of 10/sup 7/ that provides performance within 0.01 dB of Shannon's limit using iterative belief propagation (IBP) decoding. The LDPCC can be constructed for nearly any code rate and block size and encoding and IBP decoding is practical for many applications. We describe LDPCC and their decoding. We also illustrate the performance achievable for the codes by presenting performance results for rate 1/2 and 4/7 codes for a nominal 1000-bit block size. These codes will be used in an operational communication system.