To date, there has not been a time-efficient and resource-conscious way to identify cognitive impairment in patients with substance use disorders (SUD). The present study assesses the validity, accuracy, and clinical utility of a brief (10 min) screening instrument, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), in identifying cognitive impairment among SUD patients. The Neuropsychological Assessment Battery-Screening Module (NAB-SM), a 45-minute battery with known sensitivity to the mild-to-moderate deficits observed in SUD patients, was used as the reference criterion for determining agreement, rates of correct and incorrect decision classifications, and criterion-related validity for the MoCA. Classification accuracy of the MoCA, based on receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, was strong, with an area under the ROC curve = 0.86 [95% CI: 0.75-0.97]. The MoCA also showed acceptable sensitivity (83.3%) and specificity (72.9%) for the identification of cognitive impairment. Using a cut-off of 25 on the MoCA, the overall agreement was 75.0%; chance-corrected agreement (kappa) was 41.9%. These findings indicate that the MoCA provides a time-efficient and resource-conscious way to identify SUD patients with neuropsychological impairment, thus addressing a critical need in the addiction treatment research community.