Searches for New Physics at CMS

We review the capability of the CMS experiment to address the experimental searches for New Physics at the LHC. In particular, we concentrate on the first year(s) of LHC operations, since new physics at the TeV scale may manifest itself even in modest data samples of the order of a few fb−1. A few emblematic searches for the Higgs boson and for supersymmetric particles are discussed, with emphasis on processes characterized by clean final states with photons, electrons and muons.