An amine-elimination reaction was used to obtain the title compound, i.e. (N-tert-butyl-N-[[(1,2,3,3a,7a-eta)-4,5,6,7-tetrahydro-4,7-methano-1H-inden-2-yl]dimethylsilyl]amido-kappaN)bis(N-methylmethanaminato-kappaN)zirconium(IV) or [isodiCpSiMe(2)N-tert-butyl]Zr(NMe(2))(2) (Cp is cyclopentadienyl), [Zr(C(16)H(25)NSi)(C(2)H(6)N)(2)], in very good yield. Treatment of isodiCpHSiMe(2)NH-tert-butyl with Zr(NMe(2))(4) leads to the formation of a yellow solid that can be purified by sublimation. The single-crystal structure of the product shows the exo complexation of the isodicyclopentadienyl ligand to the Zr atom. The Cp portion of this ligand is bonded to the Zr atom in a eta(5) manner, with a Zr-Cg (Cg is the ring centroid) distance of 2.2352 (10) A. The isodiCpSiMe(2)N-tert-butyl ligand has a constrained geometry, which is exhibited by the small angle of 95.55 (10) degrees for N-Si-C(Cp).