We present a detailed investigation of electron tunneling in (Ga,In)As/(Al,In)As asymmetric double quantum wells as a function of different excitation and temperature conditions. We show that tunneling dynamics depend strongly on the initial carrier temperature and momentum. For example, electron and hole tunneling out of the narrow well is complete at low temperature. However at room temperature carriers do not exhibit any tunneling kinetics. We propose a simple kinetic model which describes the observed population dynamics at different carrier densities, temperatures, and excitation conditions. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.