Our approach to implementing a Secure Data Enclave (SDE) pilot for Columbia social science researchers during the 2012-13 academic year builds on the work presented at previous IASSIST workshops and panels on access to sensitive data. The SDE is a scalable alternative to existing "cold room" solutions, and provides access to sensitive or restricted data over the campus network (or over Columbia's virtual private network) with widely used secure remote access software. Our SDE pilot was designed and implemented with guidance from the University's Information Security Office and makes use of other central IT resources including an expanding virtual machine infrastructure. The project was initiated by Columbia's social science computing community which spans a number of departments and research centers. This group engaged university administrators and has proposed the goal of expanding a successful pilot into a research service at the university level. This paper will share Columbia's experiences and present guidelines for other academic institutions interested in implementing an SDE using existing central resources including IT and the libraries.