The calcium channel is thought to have a short selectivity filter containing charged glutamate side chains. This filter was modeled using an atomistic cylinder of length 10 Angstrom in which were confined eight half-charged oxygen anions representing glutamate carboxylate oxygens. Current flow through the filter was computed using applied field nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations at various mole fractions of Na+ and Ca2+ in 2 M chloride solutions with simple point charge/extended model water. The filter was cation selective and had conductances in the range of those extrapolated from experimental results. For this model, unlike implicit solvent models at lower voltages and concentrations, the mole fraction behavior was not anomalous and cation binding was nonselective at 2.2 V. Perturbations of filter diameter and confined charge resulted in similar behaviors. At physiological voltages, mole fraction conductance behavior could not be reliably simulated in 100 ns runs, but nonselective cation binding persisted. Nevertheless, it is of interest that ion entry into the confinement region was limited by an energy barrier and at least, in the case of Ca2+, led to an increase in the energy of the other Ca2+ ion in the confinement region and prompt exit of one of them. The filter was most commonly occupied by 2 or 3 Na+ ions in pure Na+ solutions or 1 or 2 Ca2+ ions in pure Ca2+ solutions. For CaCl2 solution, the additional ion, if present, was most commonly stalled behind the entry barrier, i.e., within the channel filter but not yet having entered the confinement region. Thus, the simulations demonstrate the concept that entry of a new mobile Ca2+ ion into the selectivity filter serves to release the prior occupant that was tightly bound. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.