This is a review article on the management of patients with both carotid and coronary artery lesions. Most authors agree that patients with symptomatic coronary and symptomatic carotid disease should be offered a combined operation (same anaesthetic) in the presence of unstable angina or left main stem coronary disease and staged operations in the presence of stable angina. Patients with symptomatic coronary disease and asymptomatic severe (greater than 80% stenosis) carotid disease should be offered the staged procedure not for preventing perioperative but late stroke. This statement is tentative and not supported by hard data. It should be revised when the results of the multicentre randomised studies of asymptomatic carotid stenosis become available. A prospective randomised study is required in patients with symptomatic coronary and asymptomatic severe unilateral and bilateral carotid stenosis (greater than 80%) in order to determine whether surgery in the carotid decreases the incidence of late stroke. It cannot be overemphasised that the team that does the carotid endarterectomy should have a good track record of combined mortality and morbidity of less than 5% for patients with TIA's and less than 3% for patients with asymptomatic carotid disease.