A mechanistic model has been developed for determining the stratified boundary for condensing flows in horizontal and slightly inclined tubes. Two formulations, a complete and a simplified version are considered for the equilibrium liquid level. Good agreement is found between the two formulations and generalized results were derived from the simplified version of the model. From these results, the effect of condensation is shown to be equivalent to adding a small upward inclination in adiabatic gas-liquid flow. The predicted transition line is compared with flow-regime data of different fluid properties, tube diameters, and inclinations. The predictions agreed reasonably well with the data.