The present invention provides a device and method for facilitating the placement of dental implants by use of an implant placement locator and a sequentially sized drill orientation tube series. The implant placement locator disclosed herein comprises a visible radiolucent moldable grid, a set of radiopaque markers located at known intervals within the moldable grid, and a plastic sheeting encasing the visible radiolucent moldable grid and the radiopaque markers. The method of the present invention comprises obtaining a radiograph of a patient's mouth with the implant placement locator overlaying the patient's dental ridge and then transferring reference points as indicated by the location of the radiopaque markers relative to existing teeth and other oral structures to a dental stone model. In a preferred embodiment, drill bits are directed in the desired trajectory into the patient's available lower or upper jaw bone by use of drill orientation tubes in combination with the implant placement locator. A sequentially sized set of spacers is provided having sequentially sized inside diameters to direct varying diameter drills. Drill guide parallelism is thus provided by the invention.