A simple, compact, and low cost tunable ring laser with a commercial semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) was demonstrated. The tunable ring laser is based on an external wavelength filter cavity that is analogous with the Littman configuration with a diffraction grating, a mirror, and a simple slit. The unique structural advantage of this new system is that the slit is displaced to select a desired wavelength instead of tilting the mirror as in the Littman configuration. This allows easy control over the selected wavelength by the translating action of the slit. The full width half maximum (FWHM) wavelength turning range is 45 nm, and the wavelength resolution is about 2 pm. The demonstrated tunable ring laser has 2 mW output power. The side mode suppression ratios is 70-73 dB.