The Croatian participating broadcaster, Hrvatska radiotelevizija (HRT), organised the national final Dora 2001 to select its entry for the contest.

The competition consisted of twenty entries competing in one final on 4 March 2001 at the Studio 11 of HRT in Zagreb, hosted by Dusko Ćurlić and Bojana Gregorić.

[4][5] An additional seven composers were also invited by HRT to submit songs following consultation with the Croatian Composers' Society (HDS) and Croatian Musicians Union (HDS): Tonči Huljić, Rajko Dujmić, Miro Buljan, Zrinko Tutić, Nenad Ninčević, Zdenko Runjić and Đorđe Novković.

A nine-member expert committee consisting of Pero Gotovac, Nikica Kalogjera, Stjepan Mihaljinec, Matija Dedić, Siniša Doronjga, Husein Hasanefendić, Stjepan Fučkar, Aleksandar Kostadinov and Velimir Đuretić reviewed the received submissions and selected twenty artists and songs for the competition.

[9] On 2 February 2001, Emilija Kokić who won Eurovision for Yugoslavia in 1989 as a member of Riva replaced Minea as the co-performer of the song "Ljepota".

Twelve of the twenty competing songs were performed with HRT's Revijski Orchestra with its own conductors and the winner, "Strune ljubavi" performed by Vanna, was determined by a combination of votes from four regional juries, an expert jury, a public televote divided into four telephone regions in Croatia and a public online vote.

[17] At the contest, Vanna performed the English version of "Strune ljubavi" entitled "Strings of My Heart" and Croatia finished in tenth place with 42 points.