  We present a new numerical method for the construction of quasiequilibrium
models of black hole-neutron star binaries. We solve the constraint equations
of general relativity, decomposed in the conformal thin-sandwich formalism,
together with the Euler equation for the neutron star matter. We take the
system to be stationary in a corotating frame and thereby assume the presence
of a helical Killing vector. We solve these coupled equations in the background
metric of a Kerr-Schild black hole, which accounts for the neutron star's black
hole companion. In this paper we adopt a polytropic equation of state for the
neutron star matter and assume large black hole--to--neutron star mass ratios.
These simplifications allow us to focus on the construction of quasiequilibrium
neutron star models in the presence of strong-field, black hole companions. We
summarize the results of several code tests, compare with Newtonian models, and
locate the onset of tidal disruption in a fully relativistic framework.
