Centralized, top-down fisheries management models based on biological stock-recruitment have, at best, achieved limited success when adapted to Third World fisheries. Comanagement, a resource management approach oriented towards resource users and their communities, has been proposed as an alternative strategy for managing Third World fisheries. We examine the initial success and subsequent problems of one such collaborative coastal zone management project on St. Lucia's leeward coast. Factors that must be considered in the development, implementation, and maintenance of coastal comanagement systems operating in the contexts of tropical marine ecosystems in developing nations are identified and discussed.