Assessment of costs and benefits of lake restoration techniques aids lake management by identifying the most cost effective approach, determining who benefits from the approach, and identifying who should pay for the approach. Traditional lake restoration techniques rely upon fairly straightforward methods for determining costs of the project and identifying the benefits. However incorporating nonpoint source controls into lake water quality management strategies requires understanding the costs of nonpoint source pollution as well as the potential benefits of different management strategies. Yet cost-benefit analyses of nonpoint source pollution impacts and corrective practices have traditionally focused on a narrow range of onsite costs and benefits to the owner-operator. To become an effective water quality management tool, these analyses must encompass a broader view and become sensitive to how political and social processes will influence the negotiation of economic costs and benefits. This paper reviews existing cost-benefit models and discusses criteria for their use as lake management tools and discusses the implications that a broader negotiation approach can have on lake management decisionmaking.