Recent work on protein nanopores indicates that single molecule characterization (including DNA sequencing) is possible when the length of the nanopore constriction is about a nanometer. Solid-state nanopores offer advantages in stability and tunability, but a scalable method for creating nanometer-thin solid-state pores has yet to be demonstrated. Here we demonstrate that solid-state nanopores with nanometer-thin constrictions can be produced by "cold ion beam sculpting," an original method that is broadly applicable to many materials, is easily scalable, and requires only modest instrumentation.