quicklisp-slime-helper makes it easy to use SLIME from Quicklisp. To use it, load quicklisp in your Common Lisp implementation, then evaluate: (ql:quickload "quicklisp-slime-helper") That command will create a file in the Quicklisp base directory called "slime-helper.el". Loading that file will add the Quicklisp slime path to your Emacs load-path. In your ~/.emacs, you could have something like this: (load (expand-file-name "~/quicklisp/slime-helper.el")) (setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl") quicklisp-slime-helper is available under the MIT license; see LICENSE.txt for details.