I tried to compile this on CW9 and I ran into two major problems that will probably cause you woes with other compilers as well. 1. Given the declaration: template<> class bar<foo> { template <typename baz> void method(); }; the correct method definition is not template<typename baz> void method() { } but template <> template<typename baz> void method() { } Your compiler apparently accepts the former, but I believe it's wrong. 2. Given the declaration: template <typename foo> class Base { public: typedef int bar; }; and a derived class template <typename foo> class Derived: public Base <foo> { you can't use unqualified "bar" inside declaration of Derived -- you have to qualify it with "typename Base<foo>::" (or you can use a using declaration such as "using Base<foo>::bar" inside the declaration of Derived). I don't know if CW is right on this or not -- I remember having it explained to me before, but I paged out the explanation. Anyway, these two problems generate a bunch of compiler errors, but right now I am running into the problem that my boost is older than what your code requires so I can't submit patches yet. meeroh