A two-step Liapunov-Krasovskii methodology for checking the asymptotic stability of nonlinear coupled delay differential and continuous time difference equations is proposed here. The feasibility of such methodology is shown by means of Liapunov-Krasovskii functionals with nonconstant kernels in the integrals, for instance discretized Liapunov-Krasovskii ones. An illustrative example taken from the literature, showing the effectiveness of the proposed method, is reported. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.