The Nordstr\"om-Vlasov system describes the dynamics of a self-gravitating
ensemble of collisionless particles in the framework of the Nordstr\"om scalar
theory of gravitation. We prove existence and uniqueness of classical solutions
of the Cauchy problem in three dimensions and establish a condition which
guarantees that the solution is global in time. Moreover, we show that if one
changes the sign of the source term in the field equation, which heuristically
corresponds to the case of a repulsive gravitational force, then solutions blow
up in finite time for a large class of initial data. Finally, we prove global
existence of classical solutions for the one dimensional version of the system
with the correct sign in the field equation.