This paper proposes a new admission control strategy for ATM networks, which is based on the simulation approach and regression results. Instead of using many traffic descriptors, in our strategy only numbers of connections of different types are needed in performing admission control. The strategy is evaluated from different points of view, real-time, safety, policing and its efficiency which is referred as allowed utilized bandwidth. Since the admission criteria is developed in a form of regression model, the computation of performance for accepting a new connection is quick and easy. Using the confidence region in statistics to represent the admission criteria, a conservative estimation of performance can be achieved. Besides, this strategy is quite independent, thus can be compatible with most policing functions. Finally, its bandwidth utilization is found to be above 0.54. However, the success of this strategy still depends on the reality of input traffic model. Whenever the traffic can be clearly described, the proposed strategy can be easily and precisely applied. Therefore, we also build a traffic model for different type of traffic including constant-bit-rate (CBR), variable-bit-rate (VBR) and bursty traffic. The application of the proposed strategy to different multiplexing schemes, like priority queues and polling system, etc., should be further studied. Considering different level of performance requirement for different type of traffic, which should aid the bandwidth utilization of this strategy, is also an interesting research issue.