The beam tube vacuum requirements in future superconducting proton colliders that have been proposed or discussed in the literature—SSC, LHC, and ELN—are reviewed. The main beam tube vacuum problem encountered in these machines is how to deal with the magnitude of gas desorption and power deposition by synchrotron radiation while satisfying resistivity, impedance, and space constraints in the cryogenic environment of superconducting magnets. A beam tube vacuum model is developed that treats photodesorption of tightly bound H, C, and O, photodesorption of physisorbed molecules, and the isotherm vapor pressure of H2. Experimental data on cold tube photodesorption experiments are reviewed and applied to model calculations of beam tube vacuum performance for simple cold beam tube and liner configurations. Particular emphasis is placed on the modeling and interpretation of beam tube photodesorption experiments at electron synchrotron light sources. The paper also includes discussion of the constraints imposed by beam image current heating, the growth rate of the resistive wall instability, and single‐bunch instability impedance limits. © 1995American Institute of Physics