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New testing capabilities can be added to a conventional triaxial system by using a commercially available flow pump to control the rate and amount of pore fluid movement to or from the ends of a test specimen. These capabilities include measurements of equipment compliance, constant-rate-of-deformation consolidation, very-small-strain compressibility, permeability, coefficient of consolidation, and strain-path control with arbitrary combinations of vertical and volumetric strain rates. These capabilities are of interest not only in themselves; they facilitate a testing strategy that reduces the amount of equipment and the number of replicate specimens needed to define the permeability, compressibility, and strength of a soil.