Fisheries management involves tradeoffs across recreational, commercial, and aesthetic goods. Contingent valuation assists in quantifying these tradeoffs by eliciting resource values directly from the individuals who are affected by resource management. Recent research identifies three sources of potential error in contingent valuation design: (1) communication of complex policy information to individual respondents; (2) time constraints on a respondent's valuation decisions; and (3) strategic effects that arise as a respondent attempts to influence policy outcomes. A conceptual framework and design guidelines are developed for controlling these sources of error.