The model of "Combined Self-Interest," often invoked in discussions on the need for cooperative collection development consortia, has a number of broad, rather unrealistic assumptions about the way that the collection development process actually works. That model is reassessed from the perspective of certain social science models of a loosely-coupled system, which is characterized by ambiguous goals, problematic preferences, and hazy technology. The analysis provides an overview of the rapid institutionalization of the concept of cooperative collection development in the late 1970s, as well as a discussion of the differential prospects for tightening up cooperative collection consortia with respect to academic versus special libraries, science versus social science literatures, and serial versus book formats.