The discovery of azidothymidine's (AZT) activity against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) provided strong rationale for the design of additional thymidine analogues. One drawback of many nucleoside analogues is the toxicity that often arises due to phosphorylation by cellular kinases. In order to overcome this problem, a number of truncated nucleosides lacking the 4'-hydroxymethyl group have been synthesized. In that regard, the synthesis and preliminary biological results for two truncated carbocyclic thymidine analogues are presented herein.