The mechanisms by which intensity is coded in the discharges of single auditory nerve fibers have not been fully determined, although hypotheses involving changes in discharge rate fiber recruitment have been proposed. In this paper, we will review the characteristics of auditory nerve fiber responses that may code for loudness growth and intensity discrimination. Psychophysical dynamic ranges, which are in excess of 100 dB, cannot be accounted for by the 30–40 dB dynamic range displayed by the majority of individual auditory nerve fibers. Recently, however, a subpopulation of auditory nerve fibers has been identified within each characteristic frequency (CF) region. The characteristics of these fibers include low spontaneous activities, a wide range (greater than 70 dB) of thresholds, high sensitivities to changes in intensity (i.e., steep rate‐intensity functions), and dynamic ranges as high as 60–70 dB. These results indicate that the responses of fibers having similar CFs and spanning the normal range of thresholds may account for a large portion of the behavioral dynamic range. Furthermore, intensity discrimination experiments designed to limit the spread of excitation (Hellman, 1974; Viemeister, 1974), suggest that intensity coding does not depend on recruitment of neighboring fibers. Finally, phase‐locking exists for stimulus frequencies below 5 kHz, and phase‐locking thresholds are on the average 15 dB lower than corresponding discharge rate thresholds. Thus, the overall dynamic range associated with auditory nerve responses can account for nearly the entire psychophysical loudness range. Other characteristics of neuronal response, such as input/output nonmonotonicities and synchrony suppression in the coding of multi‐component stimuli, will be discussed.