Motivated by the impressive recent advance in manipulating cold ytterbium atoms we explore and substantiate the feasibility of realizing the Coqblin-Schrieffer model in a gas of cold fermionic $^{173}$Yb atoms. Making use of different AC polarizabillity of the electronic ground state (electronic configuration $^1S_0$) and the long lived metastable state (electronic configuration $^3P_0$), it is substantiated that the latter can be localized and serve as a magnetic impurity while the former remains itinerant. The exchange mechanism between the itinerant $^1S_0$ and the localized $^3P_0$ atoms is analyzed and shown to be antiferromagnetic. The ensuing SU(6) symmetric Coqblin-Schrieffer Hamiltonian is constructed, and, using the calculated exchange constant $J$, perturbative RG analysis yield the Kondo temperature $T_K$ that is experimentally accessible. A number of thermodynamic measurable observables are calculated in the weak coupling regime $T>T_K$ (using perturbative RG analysis) and in the strong coupling regime $T<T_K$ (employing known Bethe ansatz techniques).
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