Leicester's Australian star Pat Howard will end his Tigers career on the biggest club stage in European rugby - a Heineken Cup final appointment with French champions Stade Francais.
But the influential midfield playmaker, who returns to Australia this summer after three years at Welford Road, admitted luck had played its part in setting up such a finale.
Leicester also had captain Martin Johnson sin binned and were fortunate substitute hooker Richard Cockerill was not sent off after he traded blows with Gloucester's Samoan number eight Junior Paramore.
The game's decisive moment was a controversial 22nd-minute try bagged by Leicester centre Leon Lloyd following an incisive Tim Stimpson break. Referee Joel Dume spotted Leicester prop Graham Rowntree's knock-on, and signalled a Gloucester advantage, but when that did not develop, he allowed play to continue instead of awarding the disbelieving Gloucester men a scrum.
Stimpson, who kicked 14 points, needed no second invitation to launch himself at a scattered Gloucester defence, and Lloyd completed the job.
Gloucester could have folded after that, but outhalf Simon Mannix's goal-kicking - he slotted five penalties - kept alive prospects of a sensational upset.
Johnson was bemused by his 52nd-minute yellow card, claiming he had been pushed in the back, fell to the floor and was then told by Dume to go off, together with Paramore.
When Johnson returned from the sin bin, he galvanised his forwards into absorbing everything Gloucester threw at them, most notably an injury-time lineout Tigers lost on their own throw.
Cockerill's error, just five metres from his own line, looked to be fatal, yet Johnson and company somehow stole possession, scrumhalf Austin Healey hoofed the ball clear.
