Dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking is a variation of the standard model where the Higgs mechanism is driven by spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in a new strongly interacting sector accessible at LHC energies. I will discuss the pros and cons of such models and argue that very few constraints exist when the new strong interactions are sufficiently different from quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the sector responsible for the strong nuclear force. I will then present new evidence for nearly conformal behavior in Yang-Mills theories with many flavors of quarks and discuss possible phenomenological implications for physics at LHC energies.