This paper provides exact power contours to guide the planning of reliability studies, where the parameter of interest is the coefficient of intraclass correlation rho derived from a one-way analysis of variance model. The contours display the required numbers of subjects k and number of repeated measurements n that provide 80 per cent power for testing Ho: rho less than or equal to rho 0 versus H1: rho greater than rho 0 at the 5 per cent level of significance for selected values of rho o. We discuss the design considerations of these results.