How to find a Higgs boson with a mass between 155 and 180 GeV at the CERN LHC

We reconsider the signature of events with two charged leptons and missing energy as a signal for the detection of the standard model Higgs boson in the mass region M(Higgs)=155--180 GeV. It is shown that a few simple experimental criteria allow us to distinguish events originating from the Higgs boson decaying to H→W⁺W^- from the nonresonant production of W⁺W^-X at the CERN LHC. With this set of cuts, signal to background ratios of about one to one are obtained, allowing a 5--10σ detection with about 5 fb^-1 of luminosity. This corresponds to less than one year of running at the initial lower luminosity L=10³³ cm^-2s^-1. This is significantly better than for the hitherto considered Higgs boson detection mode H→Z⁰Z0*→2l⁺2l^-, where in this mass range about 100 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity are required for a 5σ signal.