  Although the top quark has been discovered in 1995 and studied extensively by
the Tevatron experiments, the top quark will remain special for years to come
due to unique opportunities it offers. Because of the large top-antitop
production cross section and high luminosity, the LHC would be a Top factory,
producing a large sample of top quarks even at the initial low luminosities.
This will enable a rich program of top quark physics to be explored, both
within the Standard Model and using top quarks as probes of physics beyond the
Standard Model. Prospects for the observation of top pair production in the
proton-proton collisions at the center of mass energy $\sqrt{s}$=10 TeV in the
dilepton and lepton+jets final state are discussed. The emphasis is put on
analysis strategies for the early phase of CMS operation with data
corresponding to integrated luminosities of 10-20 pb$^{-1}$ considering a
realistic detector performance.
