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On Sunday, Harbaugh showed off his entire repertory. He frowned, several times, when the 49ers fell behind by 17 points early. He combined a hangdog shake of the head with a sort of disappointed-teacher expression when kicker David Akers bounced a field-goal attempt off the upright. And he grimaced, then threw a temper tantrum that would have made a toddler proud, when the officials ruled that Atlanta receiver Harry Douglas had, in fact, maintained control of a controversial catch late in the fourth quarter.

After all of that, however — and after one final last-second Atlanta pass came up short — Harbaugh allowed himself what must sometimes seem like a novelty: a smile.

It was well-deserved. One year after falling a game short of the Super Bowl with a brutal loss to the Giants, Harbaugh and the 49ers did not stumble again with the most meaningful prize in sight. They will play for the Vince Lombardi trophy this time, after rallying to beat the Falcons, 28-24, in the N.F.C. championship game, and will face either New England or Baltimore in Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 in New Orleans.

Colin Kaepernick, the rookie quarterback who was given the starting job by Harbaugh in Week 11 of this season, continued his rapid ascent to stardom, completing 16 of 21 passes for 233 yards and a touchdown. Running back Frank Gore rushed for 90 yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 9-yard surge to give San Francisco its first lead of the game with just over eight minutes to play. Unlike last week, when the Falcons lost a big lead but recovered in time to beat Seattle, quarterback Matt Ryan could not summon the requisite last-minute dramatics.

That reality left the Falcons, who were the top seed in the N.F.C., ruing another disappointing finish to a season. Atlanta got over one hump last week when it won its first playoff game in five chances under Coach Mike Smith but failed to reach its first Super Bowl since the 1998 season.

Ryan finished the game 30 of 42 passing for 396 yards and 3 touchdowns, but he also threw an interception and lost a fumble that cut short critical drives in the second half. Julio Jones recorded 182 receiving yards, Roddy White had 100 and Tony Gonzalez tallied 78 as the Falcons moved the ball at will for much of the game but stalled when it mattered most. Their running back, Michael Turner, totaled just 30 yards and left the game in the third quarter with an ankle injury.

For all the scoring, the game was a strange one. There was the read-option quarterback, Kaepernick, who hardly ran the read-option at all and finished with just 2 carries for 21 yards. There was little defense played for much of the game, except for a few moments of sheer brilliance, like when Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson jarred the ball loose with Michael Crabtree just inches from the goal line. There was, of course, Akers's field goal that doinked off the left upright. And there was, in the end, a team that once trailed by 17 points looking like it was, clearly, the superior outfit.

There was also an odd sense of déjà vu early on. After sprinting to an early lead, blowing it, and then coming back to beat Seattle in the final seconds of their divisional round victory, the Falcons managed to encapsulate that entire game in the first half Sunday. Yet again they blasted the opponent in the opening quarter, sending the Georgia Dome crowd into frequent — and joyous — conniptions as the Atlanta offense whizzed up and down the field.

Last week Ryan found White for a big scoring play and this time it was Jones doing the heavy running as he caught 2 touchdown passes in the game's first 16 minutes. The first came less than four minutes in when Jones bounced off defenders as he sprinted through the San Francisco secondary, then turned up his speed even more to catch up with Ryan's floating pass over the top.

As graceful as that 46-yard touchdown catch was, however, it was surpassed in quality by Jones's second scoring play, when he battled with cornerback Tarell Brown — who was actually doing an above-average job in coverage — on his way downfield, then leapt to pull in a laser from Ryan that he juggled (and then possessed) while tapping his feet inbounds at the end edge of the end zone. While the Falcons celebrated the 20-yard score, Brown and his teammates in the 49ers' secondary just shook their heads in frustration. In the first quarter alone, Jones tallied 100 receiving yards on five catches — one, perhaps, for each draft pick the Falcons traded to Cleveland to move into position to select him in 2011.

Dominant as the Falcons were, however — and at one point, the Falcons had recorded 202 total yards to San Francisco's minus-2 — it was hard to envision the 49ers fading away. Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson led the Seahawks all the way back from a pair of 20-point deficits last week so Kaepernick certainly had plenty of inspiration, and he slowly worked his team back into the game with a mix of runs and passes that lulled the once-boisterous home fans into a quiet discomfort.

There were few scrambles from Kaepernick — he did not really show his speed until a 23-yard scamper late in the second quarter — but much of the damage came from tight end Vernon Davis, who no doubt saw how Seattle's Zach Miller shredded the Atlanta defense last week.

As with Miller, the Falcons seemingly could not cover Davis and he caught four passes for 75 yards in the opening half including a 4-yard touch throw from Kaepernick that cut the San Francisco deficit to 17-14 with just under two minutes remaining. Davis finished the game with 5 catches for 106 yards.

Unmoved, Ryan — working with 115 seconds instead of the 25 he had on last week's final drive — quickly pushed the Falcons back and ultimately found his own tight end, Tony Gonzalez, on a 10-yard touchdown pass to make the score 24-14 at the half.