The 3D compact model of a thermoelectric cooler in the CFD approach is an essential technique for computationally realistic design of many industrial thermal management applications. The first objective of this paper is to develop a "black box"-like model for thermoelectric coolers as well as a method to formulate the effective material properties for the compact model based on the manufactures' datasheets. Second, a highly detailed and physical thermoelectric cooler model is implemented to carry out virtual experiments when the cooler datasheet is not available. A number of close comparisons validate that the compact model and parameter extraction are accurate enough, and the computation time and size are significantly lower than the physical model. The compact model is also demonstrated to be helpful in evaluating the thermal system components such as an air-cooled heat sink, so that the system-level thermal management optimization is possible without complex, multi-scale computation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.