We review the potential method in lattice QCD, which has recently been
proposed to extract nucleon-nucleon interactions via numerical simulations. We
focus on the methodology of this approach by emphasizing the strategy of the
potential method, the theoretical foundation behind it, and special numerical
techniques. We compare the potential method with the standard finite volume
method in lattice QCD, in order to make pros and cons of the approach clear. We
also present several numerical results for the nucleon-nucleon potentials.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure