We introduce a general designing procedure that allows us, for any given photonic
crystal slab, to create an appropriate line defect structure that possesses single-mode
bands with large bandwidth and low dispersion within the photonic band gap region
below the light line. This procedure involves designing a high index dielectric
waveguide that is phase matched with the gap of the photonic crystal slab, and
embedding the dielectric waveguide as a line defect into a crystal in a specific
configuration that is free of edge states within the guiding bandwidth. As an example,
we show a single mode line defect waveguide with a bandwidth approaching 13% of
the center-band frequency, and with a linear dispersion relation throughout most
of the bandwidth.