Abstract: An improved mechanism and method to attach a hard tonneau cover to a vehicle and to raise either just the rear of the cover or raise both the rear and front of the cover. The cover is supported in the raised position by two extending arms in the rear and by two rigid arms in the front. In operation, the rear of the cover is manually raised first and then the front of the cover can be manually raised. One embodiment has clamping telescoping arms for greater strength and to lock the cover in any position. Another embodiment has linear actuators to assist raising the front of the cover. The mechanism is comprised of inexpensively manufactured or off-the-shelf components. It is easily tailored to the numerous vehicle bed sizes, it can handle popular heavy body-colored fiberglass covers and it can be sold and shipped separately from the cover.