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The development of a versatile and easy-to-use instrument designed for Raman micro- and nanospectroscopy in the visible range is described in this work. An atomic force microscope, an inverted confocal microscope, and a piezostage are combined to perform an accurate and fast tip-laser alignment and to characterize large areas under the same conditions of illumination across the surface. In addition, a metallized tip is used to locally enhance the electromagnetic field and to probe the sample surface leading to in situ chemical analysis at the nanoscale. Both far-field and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopies (TERS) have been carried out on dye molecules and on nano-objects with short exposure times. The TERS observation of tip-induced sample deformation on single-walled carbon nanotubes is also presented. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.