Liftable integral closure

We develop the basic properties of an essentially new closure operation on submodules, the \emph{liftable integral closure} of a submodule, including its relationships with the two prevailing notions of integral closure of submodules. We show that for a quite general class of local rings, every finite length module may be represented as a quotient of the form $T/L$, where $T$ is torsionless and integrally dependent on $L$.