The Caribbean region has long been in desperate need of professional persons who can address its burgeoning mental health problems. This need has been addressed only minimally and relatively recently by the establishment of a training programme in psychiatry in the Faculty of Medical Sciences (of the University of the West Indies, UWI) in 1965. The small numbers of psychiatrists who have been trained in this programme have been insufficient to meet the mental health needs of the region. Clinical psychologists, by virtue of the scope of their training and wide range of clinical and therapeutic expertise, are eminently qualified to meet this challenge. There has never been a tertiary training programme in clinical psychology in the English-speaking Caribbean. A failed attempt to introduce a MSc Clinical Psychology programme by the Faculty of Medical Sciences, UWI Mona in the 1980s has been followed by the successful staging of a MSc in clinical psychology for the 2001/2002 academic year and the launching of a PhD programme in clinical psychology for the year 2002/2003. Both programmes are offered jointly by an inter-faculty collaboration at the University of the West In dies, Mona, between the section of Psychiatry of the Department of Community Health and Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, and the Psychology Unit of the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work in the Faculty of Social Sciences. The interest in these programmes is growing exponentially with a total of 53 students applying for the 12 available spaces in the MSc programme for its second year of operation, and six PhD students being accepted in 2002–2003. These programmes stand as models for the development of similar programmes throughout the region.