Dead-beat controllers for simple Hammerstein systems are investigated. Several designs for nonminimum-time state dead-beat controllers are given for certain classes of simple Hammerstein systems. A general minimum-time state dead-beat controller is presented for a class of simple Hammerstein systems. A design for a family of minimum-time control laws is provided. This enables, to a certain extent, shaping of transient response via choosing an appropriate control law. Finally, the authors design an output dead-beat controller for a class of Hammerstein systems that are not necessarily state dead-beat controllable.