In this paper we present a viewpoint on modeling the lifetime of glass fiber/polymer matrix composite structures loaded primarily in tension along the fiber axis. In many applications such components may sustain, over many years and in deleterious environments, stress levels that are a significant fraction of their ultimate tensile strength. Thus the failure phenomenon of concern is creep rupture. Ideally, a comprehensive model should incorporate such features as environmentally driven, statistical degradation mechanisms in the glass fiber (such as stress corrosion cracking), creep and microcracking of the polymer matrix, slip at the fiber/matrix interface near fiber breaks, local residual stresses from processing, including their complex micromechanical interactions. Such a model should yield overall distributions for lifetime in terms of the overall applied stress field, the overall volume of material, and boundary effects. Parameters of the model should reflect subtle scaling relationships among microstructural variables (e.g., fiber packing geometry), parameters of the statistics of fiber strength and degradation, matrix and interface creep exponents, rate factors in the stress–corrosion chemistry, and applied stress level. Particular attention must be paid to the character of the extreme lower tails of the strength and lifetime distributions since these are crucial in establishing load levels that result in the extremely high reliability levels important in life-safety applications. For example, the model should be able to predict the steady load level in a composite specimen with an effective loaded volume that yields a given lifetime (e.g., 25 years) at an extremely low probability of failure (e.g., 10 −6). This essentially rules out mean field approaches so prevalent in the mechanics and physics community. A model of this sort would also be useful in the development of strategies for effective accelerated testing and data interpretation using special time–temperature scalings and master curves. Lastly, the model would have value in guiding strategies for quality control, materials processing, and component architecture during manufacture. Of course, such a comprehensive model is well beyond the present state of the art. Nevertheless, a surprising amount of progress has been made in developing the necessary conceptual and computational framework including the micromechanics, chemistry and physics of the fundamental failure mechanisms. In this paper we will review some of the relevant literature and suggest directions that should be fruitful in yielding useful models.