Abstract: A compact vacuum chamber gives electric and optical access to a microchip, which is part of the chamber. The main use of the microchip is to confine, cool and manipulate cold atoms (atom chip). The main new feature is that the microchip forms one wall of a vacuum cell. This makes the chamber compact and lightweight, provides large optical access combined with small overall size, eliminates in-vacuum cabling, and makes the back surface of the chip accessible from the outside (e.g., for cooling and/or additional field-producing elements).