ABSTRACT This article studies the strategies for visibility of some of the most outstanding publications from Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia, and the relationship between open access and the visibility of these journals. By means of in‐depth interviews with the editors, we explored their indexing and circulation strategies and examined certain organizational and contextual variables that may have helped them to remain in circulation. We also considered whether a combination of electronic publication and open access to the contents of the journals have increased the visibility of science from these developing countries. When these journals were not available electronically, even if they were distributed at no cost, their distribution was necessarily selective, and one could not properly speak of open access; once they were put on the Web, however, they became widely available at no cost to the reader. The editors' views on open access are also explored.