  We examine the effect of the trapping potential on the critical temperature,
$T_C$, for the BCS transition to a superfluid state in trapped atomic gases of
fermions. $T_C$ for an arbitrary power law trap is calculated in the
Thomas-Fermi approximation. For anharmonic traps, $T_C$ can be increased by
several orders of magnitude in comparison to a harmonic trap. Our theoretical
results indicate that, in practice, one could manipulate the critical
temperature for the BCS phase transition by shaping the traps confining the
atomic Fermi gases.
