It is critical to understand the fracture behavior of joints in structural applications if they are to behave in a reliable manner. Joints with graded interlayers have tile potential of optimizing performance by allowing for multifunctionallity as well as reducing residual stress, but their behavior is not understood well enough to provide suitable guidelines. This is particularly true when critical flaws are oriented asymmetrically within the gradient. This paper reviews the important parameters that affect the fracture behavior, and provides examples, with particular focus on predicting crack paths. Some work in the literature is described, but mostly tile author's own work is presented. Parameters of discussed include elastic-plastic property mismatch, residual stress distribution, and graded architectural and geometrical parameters. In some cases tile fracture behavior is simple, and simple models work, but in other cases the various geometric parameters combine synergistically with residual stress effects to produce behavior that is difficult to predict.